TOTP Rewind – the 90s | My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 11 JUN 1999

After a rare, half decent show last week, could we be about to begin a run of better hits and performances? Well, I don’t know about that but what I am certain of is that seven of the eight songs on this one we haven’t seen before. However, we start with an ex-No 1 from a month ago which is back on the show because…? Because “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys had gone back up from No 9 to No 7. As Peter Crouch might say, “Big Deal!”. What’s that? It was a big deal? What because it sold 3 million copies in the US, because it was No 1 in just about every territory on the planet and because it was the 15th biggest selling boyband single of the 1990s in the UK selling 423,300 copies? Because of those things? Yeah, I don’t care. Big deal. NEXT!

In the late 90s mini-movement that was instrument playing all girl groups, after Hepburn and before Thunderbugs came 21st Century Girls. Though they had a name that suggested forthcoming longevity, this lot really were a case of blink and you’ll miss them. They were the protégés of music mogul Simon Fuller whose influence on the industry, though substantial, would become ever more pervasive in the years that followed. After being infamously sacked as the manager of the Spice Girls, he’d turned his attention to a Monkees-esque project for the 90s in S Club 7 but still had time to launch another all girl group. And this lot really were girls aged between 14 and 16 at the time that their debut single – also called “21st Century Girls” – hit the charts. Hailing from Dudley in the West Midlands, they’d formed a band st school and were spotted by a talent scout for Ian Allen’s Creative Management company. Allen managed Next of Kin who’d had a No 13 hit with “24 Hours From You” in 1999 so he had a track record for spotting young potential and getting them into the charts. He would duly do the same with 21st Century Girls but only after he’d given their demo CD to Fuller who immediately signed the group to his 19 Recordings label.

“I wanted something different – an antidote to all that is sterile and artificial about the music scene. I’m on a mission to take this band, which is pure and unadulterated and make them the biggest thing ever.”

Fulton, Rick; Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland); April 23, 1999.

Hmm. Methinks he doth protest too much especially as Fuller proceeded to spend thousands to promote his “pure and unadulterated” group, a saturation project that resulted in a No 16 charting debut single and an appearance on TOTP. Was that an acceptable return on Fuller’s investment? Possibly not but these were literally just kids we’re talking about – the weight of responsibility to succeed was completely unreasonable. Indeed, Fuller was on record as saying that 21st Century Girls would be bigger than the Spice Girls – strike unreasonable and replace it with intolerable. Then there’s the music itself. In its favour, it didn’t sound much like Fuller’s former charges what with their influences were Green Day and Garbage. In the debit column, it wasn’t very good nor original. Their song was full of forced raucousness and naive, clunky lyrics* with a sound that was a melting pot of Republica, Transvision Vamp and Shampoo. It was meant to be a heady brew but it ended up being a concoction that was flavourless.

*If they wrote them, their age is a defence. If they were written for them, I guess it was part of their image but still.

They would not release another single in the UK presumably because Fuller lost interest (and the fact that S Club 7 took off) though a follow up and album were made available in Japan where the aforementioned Shampoo had been similarly massive. And so ended the tale of 21st Century Girls who never even made it out of the 20th century.

When I think about the film Notting Hill, or more specifically the music from it, I think of Elvis Costello’s version of “She” or Ronan Keating’s take on “When You Say Nothing At All”. At a push, maybe “Gimme Some Lovin’” by Spencer Davis Group which soundtracks the car scene as Hugh Grant’s character tries to get to a press conference at the Savoy Hotel. Or even “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers which plays as the passing of time scene after Julia Roberts’ character has left London. At no point would my mind have turned to “From The Heart” by Another Level. Is it even in the film?

“Checks the internet*

Just as I thought; it doesn’t appear as a prominent background song during a main dialogue scene during the whole movie. Apparently, it features over the credits at some point but that must be well into them as “When You Say Nothing At All” plays at the end of the movie. Having said all of that, I don’t think Wet Wet Wet’s cover of “Love Is All Around” is heard in Four Weddings And A Funeral (which Notting Hill was a sequel to just about) until the credits have long since stated rolling. Anyway, my point is that I don’t recall Another Level’s contribution to the Notting Hill soundtrack at all and it’s one of those films I tend to watch if I happen upon it while channel hopping so I know it pretty well. Plus, we must have played the soundtrack in the Our Price where I was working a few times at least seeing as it went platinum in the UK. Punters in America who did buy the album however, got a slightly different track listing which omitted “In Our Lifetime” by Texas and instead included “No Matter What” by Boyzone. Why? Good question. That track doesn’t feature in the film at all what with it being from the soundtrack to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Whistle Down The Wind. What gives? AI tells me that the song was used in the promotion of Notting Hill in America with an alternate version of the song’s music video produced specifically featuring clips of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant interspersed with the band. That still doesn’t explain why? What was the association? I don’t get it. What’s that? Ronan Keating is the link? That’s it?! Nah, I’m not having it. Pure nonsense. Eh? What about Another Level’s song? I repeat, I’m not having it. Pure nonsense.

The return of The Chemical Brothers next who were hoping to replicate the success of their previous No 1 hits “Setting Sun” and “Block Rockin’ Beats” from ‘96 and ‘97 respectively. They came close with “Hey Boy Hey Girl” which was the lead single from third album “Surrender”. This was, I believe, what was known as a ‘bangin’ tune’. With its distinctive, repeated lyric and insistent, almost alarm-like back beat, you just couldn’t ignore this one. Oh yeah, that lyric. I’ve never noticed this before but the order of the single’s title is reversed in the words spoken on the track. Look…

“Hey girls Hey boys

Superstar DJs Here we go”

Writer(s): Richard Lee Fowler, Charles Pettiford, Gregory Carlton Wigfall, Edmund John Simons, Jerry Bloodrock, Thomas Owen Mostyn Rowlands, Celita Evans

I wonder why that was? I don’t think it makes too much difference in the way that it scans. As for the “superstar DJs” line, that always reminds me of the staff rota at the Our Price store I was working in when this single was out. Why? This is really niche and probably of no interest to anyone else reading this but it is my blog so…for my own personal amusement when compiling the weekly staff rota of who was in and when, sometimes I would allocate nicknames to my colleagues. So Suzanne was Skipper (can’t remember why), Lisa was Looby-Loo (from Andy Pandy – again no idea why) and then there was a guy called Richard who only worked on a Saturday but who loved his dance music so he was…of course…Superstar DJ. Look, I did warn you that this anecdote wouldn’t be interesting to anyone else!

What was interesting though was the video that gets shown here. Starting with the story of a girl on a school trip to the Natural History Museum who fractures her arm, it follows her into being an adult and going to a nightclub. Dominant throughout the promo is the imagery of all the human beings she encounters as being reduced to just bones, literally skeletons. Again I ask, what was that all about? A tribute to the climatic scene in 1963 movie Jason And The Argonauts when the titular heroes have to fight seven armed skeletons – ‘the children of the Hydra’s teeth’?

The version shown on TOTP, as hinted at by host Jamie Theakston, is heavily edited with a scene of a couple having sex in a nightclub toilet both in the flesh and as skeletons removed. Having seen the full version, there was no way that was getting past the censors. Quite what the idea behind the cutback shots to the studio audience watching the video on a big screen was I’m not sure. It’s not as if they’re even dancing enthusiastically but rather just milling about. Sort of. Very odd.

There was a third single from Cher’s “Believe” album?! Yes, there was and a fourth actually but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Though she wasn’t averse to a cover version, “All Or Nothing” wasn’t Cher’s take on the Small Faces’ classic hit but yet another track with 90s disco anthem pretensions but to my ears it was just a watered down version of “Strong Enough” which itself was the poor relation of “Believe”. Did every song on the album sound the same? There’s a slight deviation in the middle where it goes a bit “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer but then that’s just copying someone else rather than yourself.

After some of her previous outfits down the years, Cher has come to the studio in a dress-down-Friday, casual style. Her bright red hair still hints at her sense of the glamorous life though. As was almost inevitable, all the singles released from the “Believe” album would peak at a lower chart position than the one before it with “All Or Nothing” making it to No 12. I guess it was unreasonable to expect every hit to be as big as the commercial whopper that “Believe” (the song) was.

If pressed, I would have said that Feeder didn’t turn up until into the new millennium but here they were in 1999 with their fourth Top 40 hit “Insomnia”. Clearly they didn’t register on my radar back then and I now realise that they can only have bleeped for the first time when “Buck Rogers” was a Top 5 hit in 2001. Listening to them in 2026, is it fair to say they were/are like a UK version of Green Day? After all, they did have an album called “Insomniac” (ahem). Ok, Ok – not a UK version but a Welsh one. I’m nothing if not fastidious about facts. To back that claim up, I should really say that they are a Welsh-Japanese hybrid with founding member and bassist Taka Hirose being from Japan.

Looking at Feeder’s discography, I was a little surprised to see that they have released twelve studio albums with the most recent coming in 2024. Having said that, the first one came in 1997 so that’s twelve in just under 30 years. Is that a lot or not that many? More than one every three years is pretty consistent I would say. And yet the extent of my knowledge of them is pretty much the aforementioned “Buck Rogers”. Sometimes I wonder what my credentials for writing a music blog are at all.

I had the briefest of dalliances with the Red Hot Chili Peppers back in 1994 when I could no longer ignore a rerelease of “Under The Bridge”. Having been a No 26 hit in 1992, my purchase of it two years later helped it to spend two weeks at No 13. The CD single I bought included a version of “Give It Away” which I also liked. That was as far as my commitment went though and I pretty much ignored 1995’s “One Hot Minute” album. However, even my lukewarm interest was reignited by 1999’s “Californication” album. Now, let me be upfront and open – I didn’t actually buy it but I could certainly appreciate its wares starting with lead single “Scar Tissue”.

This was the more melodic side of the band that had first drawn me in via “Under The Bridge”. Indeed, comparisons highlighting similarities between the two tracks wouldn’t have been that wide of the mark. Based around the marvellously meandering guitar riffs of the returning John Frusciante, it was a great example of the band at the height of their powers. Indeed, it was so popular in America that it spent a record breaking 16 weeks atop the US Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. It should surely have hit higher in the UK than its No 15 peak. As a song to perform on their very first visit to the TOTP studio, it was certainly a high bar. “Californication” would become one of the band’s biggest ever albums going five times platinum in the UK and eight times platinum in the US.

We’ve arrived at one of the strangest No 1 records of not just the 90s but perhaps of all time. A bold claim but what other word would you use to describe the success of “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann other than strange. This one took me totally by surprise though many punters were one step ahead of me (despite my working in a record shop) and asking for it well before its official release. I clearly hadn’t been listening to Chris Moyles on Radio 1 who led a campaign to make it a hit. So what was it all about? The story of the record starts with the essay ‘Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young’ which was written by American journalist Mary Schmich and published in the June 1, 1997 issue of the Chicago Tribune. It was written as a hypothetical commencement speech given to graduating students, in which Schmich dispenses various pieces of advice for living a happy life with persistent references to using sunscreen having seen a young woman sunbathing and hoping she was wearing sufficient sun protection. An urban legend developed around the article suggesting that it was, in fact, a genuine commencement speech made by the author Kurt Vonnegut at MIT.

Enter Australian film director Baz Luhrmann who was working on a remix of Rozalla’s “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)” for his “Something For Everybody” album, a track he’d used a version of on the soundtrack to his film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Aware of the supposed Vonnegut speech, he decided to use it in the remix but wasn’t sure he could get clearance from the author in time. Looking for Vonnegut’s contact details, he became aware of the true source of the speech and was able to get consent from Schmich. Narrated by Australian voice actor Lee Perry (not the ‘Scratch’ version) it would become a member of that most exclusive of genres – the spoken word hit alongside J J Barrie’s “No Charge” and “If” by Telly Savalas. To be honest, I’d forgotten how it went and listening back to it on this TOTP repeat, I found it completely underwhelming and myself nonplussed about why there had been such a huge fuss about it in the first place. Despite said hype and amid claims that it would be one of the biggest sellers of the year (it wasn’t), it lasted just three weeks inside the Top 10. The whole episode was completely bizarre.

So did this episode continue the quality of last week’s show? Probably not. There was an awful lot of crap though the Chemical Brothers and Red Hot Chili Peppers readdressed the balance handsomely with a mention in dispatches for Feeder.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Backstreet Boys	I Want It That Way	Never
2	21st Century Girls	21st Century Girls	Negative
3	Another Level	From The Heart	Nah
4	The Chemical Brothers	Hey Boy Hey Girl	Nope
5	Cher	All Or Nothing	Nothing then
6	Feeder	Insomnia	No
7	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Scar Tissue	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Baz Luhrmann	Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)	I did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002sw98/top-of-the-pops-11061999

TOTP 04 JUN 1999

Posted on 3 Days Ago by 80stastic

This TOTP was broadcast two days before my 31st birthday in 1999 and as I recall, on the big day, I got rip-roaring drunk with various friends and work colleagues at my flat. I think I ended up prostrate on the floor unable to stir myself to even say goodbye to people. Bit embarrassing really especially as I would have been at work the next day with some of the people who would have seen me in that state. Not professional at all. Judging by the date stamp on the photo below and by my smiling face, I’d recovered by the following Thursday though. Why was that photo taken? I have no idea 27 years on (this would have been before smartphones with cameras remember) but I’m guessing we might have been going to the pub after work (probably the same Bricklayers Arms as referenced in my last post) which, if true, demonstrates an unhealthy commitment to alcohol consumption on my behalf! Anyway, drinking habits aside, what else was happening in my world back then and which hits might I have been selling over the counter?*

*Apart from Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger” single and Geri Halliwell’s “Schizophonic” album judging by the posters in the shop window. And is that an advert for the Gay Dad album? Blimey! The bods at Head Office got that one wrong!

Jamie Theakston is our host and we start with Sixpence None The Richer who are riding high in the charts with “Kiss Me” at No 5. This one understandably got a lot of daytime radio airplay including from Mark and Lard on their Radio 1 afternoon show who would refer to the band as Sixpence None The Wiser. I used to enjoy listening to them if I found myself upstairs in the shop off the counter doing something. Featuring characters like Fat Harry White, spoof phone-in quizzes like Bird Or Bloke and surreal segments such as One Man And His Frog (“Come-bye yer bitch”), it was almost appointment listening. Sadly, the BBC, in their predictably short-sighted way, called time on Mark and Lard in 2004 with their final Radio 1 show being broadcast on 26 March. Lard’s catchphrase of “Stop!…Carry on” was heartbreakingly truncated to a final “Stop!” and some of the most entertaining daytime radio ever broadcast was gone forever.

Look at this! A No 2 hit no less which I have zero recall of! Maybe I didn’t have the constitution of an ox and I was just drunk at work as well as at the flat (I wasn’t, honest). The fact remains though that listening to “Ooh La La” by The Wiseguys now is like hearing it for the first time. No, not the first time as it sounds like one of those late 80s/early 90s sample heavy, house tunes such as “Hear the Drummer (Get Wicked)” or some such like.

Apparently, its success was down to the Budweiser advert below which again I don’t remember. Not this particular one with the crocodile anyway – anyone around at that time is familiar with the croaking frogs Bud, Weis, and Er, a forerunner of the whole “Whassup?” campaign.

“Ooh La La” was just dreadful shout-and-response nonsense and who were those berks in collars and ties up there on stage sticking it to us? One looks a bit like a young Louis Theroux and the other like Keith from The Office. Did they think they were some sort of turn of the millennium Blues Brothers? Thankfully they only had this one hit before the record buying public got wise to these guys and ignored them. Oh, and if I wanted someone to shout “Ho!” then I would choose this guy every time…

From a hit for the feeble-minded to something much more engaging. “You Look So Fine” was the fifth and final single released in the UK from Garbage’s sophomore album “Version 2.0” which was already one year old by this point so it’s not really surprising that it secured the lowest chart position of those five hits when it debuted at its peak of No 19. However, far from being a Michael Jackson fan-fleecing style release, the band had seemingly put some thought into it when they initiated a remix trading arrangement with Fun Lovin’ Criminals. You may recall that the New York hip-hoppers had recently been on the show with their hit “Korean Bodega”. That single included a remix by Garbage (which was specifically advertised on the cover artwork) and Fun Lovin’ Criminals reciprocated by producing a version of “You Look So Fine” as a slowed down, lounge standard which I think I actually prefer.

That’s not to say the original album version isn’t any good. The last track on “Version 2.0”, it shows a softer side to the band whilst retaining their alternative rock profile. The band’s drummer and co-producer Butch Vig is on record as describing it as his favourite track on the album due to its “Carpenters covers Sonic Youth quality”. Hang on. Shouldn’t that be the other way round…

Apparently the strings outro was added after the song had been initially recorded when Shirley Manson came into the studio after watching the Titanic film. She’d hated it but did draw inspiration from its soundtrack to give “You Look So Fine” a more cinematic style. The band would take that filmic theme and go stratospheric with it with their next single – the James Bond song “The World Is Not Enough” – a release which would catapult Garbage into another universe altogether.

After teaming up with the groover from Vancouver that is Bryan Adams for their hit “Cloud #9”, Chicane continued to work with other artists for next release “Saltwater” by joining forces with Máire Brennan of Clannad. It was quite the contrast in collaborations. However, it wasn’t the first time that Máire had made a record with someone else. Back in 1986, the shimmering “In A Lifetime” featuring Bono was a No 20 hit for Clannad (and a No 17 when rereleased to promote their Best Of album “Pastpresent”). “Saltwater” was something completely different. Nothing to do with Julian Lennon’s 1991 song – actually, I’d quite have liked it if it was – in fact, it was based upon another Clannad song and perhaps there most famous one. “Theme From Harry’s Game” had gone Top 5 in 1982 off the back of the success of the ITV drama Harry’s Game about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It remains the only British hit single ever to have been sung entirely in Irish. Máire Brennan would re-record those lyrics (along with some new ones) in 1999 for Chicane to use to create “Saltwater”. A UK dance chart No 1 (it also made a healthy No 6 on the Top 40), its trance beats melded miraculously well with Brennan’s haunting, melancholic vocals creating an unusual dance classic. The celestial-type choir in virginal white backing Máire here adds to the ethereal vibe. I wonder if her younger sister Enya was watching at home thinking “I could have done that”.

The return of Supergrass next whom we had not seen nor heard for nigh on 20 months since their last chart appearance. After their first two albums had gone to No 1 and No 2 in the charts respectively, expectations were high for their eponymously titled third album. It didn’t disappoint when it went to No 3 and furnished the band with two of their most well known hits. The first of those was “Pumping On Your Stereo”, a rousing, stomper of a song that more than a little fed into the band’s glam rock influences. Like breakthrough hit “Alright” (though also nothing like it at all), it was immediately memorable with that chant-a-long chorus and just a little risqué with the double entendre of replacing “pumping” with “humping” in the repeated stanza. It deserved a higher placing than its No 11 peak.

Whilst the performance here is adequately enjoyable, it would be remiss of me not to mention the official video for the single. Perhaps one of the most fun promos of the decade, the Jim Henson designed puppet costumes created an entrancing illusion with no trace of CGI. Essentially using the puppeteer/black backdrop effect employed in 70s children’s TV show Paper Play presented by Susan Stranks, the elongated puppet bodies also lent the video the faintest whiff of the sinister akin to 1986’s Labyrinth starring David Bowie as Jareth, King of the Goblins.

I particularly like drummer Danny Goffey’s telescopic legs which make him look almost arachnid-like. It made for a much better image than just modelling Goffey as The Muppets drummer Animal from fictional group Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. That goes for the rest of the band as well. I’m not sure that Gaz Coombes as Dr Teeth and Mick Quinn as Floyd would have worked at all well either.

Three albums into their career and Shed Seven were already at the Greatest Hits stage with the release of the album “Going For Gold”. Could that position be justified?

*checks Shed Seven discography*

Well, they had clocked up twelve Top 40 hits by this point which would certainly be enough to comprise a Greatest Hits album. However, of those twelve, only one made the Top 10 and just five peaked between the positions 20 and 11. Having checked the track listing for “Going For Gold”, I can confirm that all twelve of those chart hits were included within a 15 song set which was completed by debut single “Mark” which failed to make the Top 40 and two new songs. The first of those was “Disco Down” which was released to promote the collection. This was a great little song with a choppy intro that drew you in from the very start, a sweeping, string-laden bridge leading into a gloriously uplifting chorus with the pay off of a killer final line. Absolutely one of the band’s best ever recordings and absolutely worthy of spearheading a Best Of campaign.

“Going For Gold: The Greatest Hits” would go Top 10 and achieve (very appropriately) gold status. However, it would also be the harbinger of a break up between the band and their label Polydor. Shed Seven themselves had questioned the validity of releasing a Best Of album so early in their career but had agreed after securing consent from Polydor that they could release two new singles from it. “Disco Down” had been the first and was supposed to be followed by “High Hopes” but Polydor reneged on the agreement, wanting to re-release “Going For Gold” instead. The band saw this as short changing their fanbase and this would ultimately lead to them parting ways with their label. In the intervening years, they have released four more albums including 2024’s No 1 “A Matter Of Time” and also that year, “Liquid Gold”, an album consisting of re-imagined/re-recorded versions of their songs. This would follow “A Matter Of Time” to the top of the charts giving them two No 1 albums in the same calendar year, a feat achieved by very few artists.

After having reached critical mass commercially when their third album “Travelling Without Moving” went quadruple platinum, Jamiroquai kept that momentum going by scoring their first ever No 1 single with “Deeper Underground” from the Godzilla soundtrack. By 1999, the pressure to maintain that run must have been on and Jay Kay responded to it with fourth album “Synkronized” and it did well. Really well. It topped the UK charts going platinum in the process. However, success is relative and ultimately it sold less than half the amount of copies of its predecessor worldwide. You couldn’t fault the expansive exuberance of lead single “Canned Heat” though with its retro 70s disco feel and strong Saturday Night Fever symptoms. The album itself was generally well received but with a few dissenting voices. The critic Tom Moon said of it:

“Canned Heat” and several other tracks are thinly veiled rewrites of “Virtual Insanity” and the other radio songs from “Travelling Without Moving”

Moon, Tom (9 July 1999). “Jamiroquai expands on its ‘70s influences: [Final Edition]”. Las Vegas Review-Journal.

And that was my problem with Jamiroquai. It really was all starting to sound the same. Retread after retread of what had gone before. It was fine in short bursts but the idea of listening to a whole album of it? I’d rather turn up for work with a stinking hangover (and I knew all too well what that felt like as we have already discussed earlier).

Shanks & Bigfoot remain at No 1 for a second week with “Sweet Like Chocolate”. Again we get the animated video rather than a studio performance. Did the duo not like the limelight? Had they had a heavy weekend on the lash like I had and weren’t up to an in person appearance? If so, they had my sympathies.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sixpence None The Richer	Kiss Me	I did not
2	The Wiseguys	Ooh La La	Heavens no!
3	Garbage	You Look So Fine	Negative
4	Chicane / Máire Brennan	Saltwater	Nope
5	Supergrass	Pumping On Your Stereo	No but I had the parent album
6	Shed Seven	Disco Down	No but I think I had that Greatest Hits album it came from
7	Jamiroquai	Canned Heat	Nah
8	Shanks & Bigfoot	Sweet Like Chocolate	No

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002sjbl/top-of-the-pops-04061999

TOTP 28 MAY 1999

Posted on 9 Days Ago by 80stastic

Two days before this TOTP aired, Manchester United completed an historic treble when they dramatically came from behind to beat Bayern Munich at the death and win the Champions League to add to their Premier League title and FA Cup. It’s one of those sporting moments which everyone can remember where they were when it happened. For me, I had spent the day at work in the Our Price store in Altrincham which is only six or seven miles from Old Trafford. As such there were plenty of United fans in Altrincham (I worked with a couple) that day. The plan was to stay out after work, settle down in a pub and watch the game that way. What our group hadn’t banked on was how busy the pubs would be on the evening. We went into one place where it looked like the guys in there had staked their claims for their seats hours before and just stared down anyone who came in thinking that they had a chance of securing a decent spot. We left quickly. In the end, we resorted to our old faithful the Bricklayers Arms where we would often go for a post work drink. Inevitably, it was packed and they only had a small TV screen at the far end of the pub so it wasn’t the best vantage point. However, it was too late to find anywhere else so we stayed and watched the action as best we could.

For much of the match it seemed that United had stage fright and were blowing their chance of achieving the treble. Then came that finale. As the clock on the screen clicked past the 90 minutes mark and the score still 0-1 to Bayern, I recall saying to a United supporting colleague that it was all over. Three minutes later it was but with United with their hands on the big-eared trophy. It was truly gripping stuff. After the game, I got the tram home to Manchester which was full of celebrating reds wondering if my beloved Chelsea would ever be able to win the Champions League. Thirteen years later I would have my answer as we also beat Bayern Munich in dramatic style giving cause to doubt 1999 final commentator Clive Tyldesley’s remark that “nobody will ever win a European Cup final more dramatically than this”.

It seems like I might be back to a themed post so let’s get to it. First of all though, I should mention that this episode was quite historic, not for the music featured in it but its location. Filmed in Archaos nightclub in Glasgow, this was the first time ever a show was recorded outside of a studio environment and the first in over 30 years to be filmed outside London. Why? Well, Glasgow was the location of the BBC Music Live 1999 festival featuring over 100 events including performances from Ray Charles, Idlewild, Travis, and The Delgados. As part of the promotion for it, a nice little tie-in with TOTP saw the show shifted to Glasgow for one week only. As such, executive producer Chris Cowey seems to have squeezed as many Scottish acts as possible into the running order alongside Edinburgh born presenter Gail Porter. As for a link to the events at the Camp Nou, Barcelona two days prior, well, Glasgow is home to Celtic, the first ever British winners of the European Cup.

We start though with a performance back in London from the UK Eurovision entry Precious and their tune “Say It Again”. This was always going to happen as the song contest was held the day after this TOTP was broadcast (blimey, it was all happening this week in 1999 wasn’t it?) so the BBC was bound to plug our entry*. So how did we do? Not great, not great at all actually. Twelfth position with just 38 points received and to think we had won the thing just two years before and came second in 1998. These days, that sort of result would probably be seen as standard but it must have been a bit of a shock back then though I can’t recall the actual reaction at the time. As for Precious, they limped on for a couple more minor hits but their only album completely bombed and they split in 2000. Perhaps their biggest claim to fame is that one of their number – Jenny Frost – would go in to great chart success when she replaced Kerry Katona in Atomic Kitten.

*In fairness, they had gone straight into the Top Ten at No 6 as well.

Manchester United Treble link: Well, Gail Porter does say in her intro that Precious were hoping to do a Manchester United and become Eurovision champs and then mentions Alex Ferguson in her outro so there’s that.

It’s the first performance from Glasgow next and when I said Chris Cowey had squeezed as many Scottish acts as possibly the running order, I didn’t think he would have gone this far. What am I talking about? Well, Texas were there to perform their next single “Summer Son” but it wasn’t out in the shops until the 16th August! That’s nearly three months on from this TOTP! I’m sure it was viewed as a legitimate promotional opportunity by those involved but it didn’t help those poor saps working in record shops (i.e. me) who would be asked the following day for the new Texas single only to be told it’s not out for three months despite the fact that it was on TOTP the night before. Look, it was performed twice on the show when it was finally released so I’ll leave it until then to discuss the actual song.

Manchester United Treble link: Teddy Sheringham who scored United’s first goal in the final and Sharleen Spiteri were both participants in a 2011 Celtic FC famine appeal charity match to raise funds for East Africa.

We’re back in London next for a band with a hit single which sounds very familiar. Who is it that Sugar Ray and their song “Every Morning” reminds me of? Well, take your pick from any of this lot:

Smash Mouth
Fastball
OMC
Len

Catchy, breezy, summery – yes, it was all those things and it had a flamenco flavour to it which seemed so popular in the 90s after the Gypsy Kings had crossed over at the start of the decade.

Not quite a one hit wonder but close to it, Sugar Ray had formed in 1992 – yes, they were a band not a person as in the boxers Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Leonard – as a funk metal outfit in the style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers but shifted to a more pop sound in 1997 with their single “Fly” which was a No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart. They fully embraced that more mainstream sound on their third album “14:59” from which “Every Morning” was taken. The album went triple platinum in the US but failed to get any commercial foothold in the UK. Diminishing returns set in after that peak but the band are still together mainly playing live with their last album having been released in 2019. Ethan Hawke lookalike singer Mark McGrath would eke out a parallel TV game show host career but for some people Sugar Ray will always be that band from the Scooby Doo movie…

Manchester United Treble link: Author Simon Hughes, who has written biographies of Manchester United legends such as Tommy Taylor, Dennis Viollet, Jimmy Murphy, and Denis Law, also wrote a book about the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

Well, this is fortunate. A Scottish band who have a new entry in this week’s Top 40 and who are available to perform in this Glasgow based TOTP in support of the BBC Music Live 1999 festival. Having made the leap from post-Britpop indie rockers on the fringes of the chart to the mainstream of radio friendly pop/rock with their Top 20 hit “Writing To Reach You”, the next release for Travis would be an important one. At the very least it needed to consolidate on that breakthrough success and that’s exactly what “Driftwood” did when it became the band’s highest charting single to that point. A gentler, more acoustic sounding track than its predecessor, it showcased their melodic side with a lovely bridge part into the floating chorus. In some ways, it’s an almost semi-forgotten single compared to the what came after it but it helped to pave the way for next release “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” which is surely one of their best known tunes. Global success was almost within reach and they didn’t need to write to anyone to get it.

Manchester United Treble link: Part of the backroom staff supporting interim United manager Michael Carrick is one Travis Binnion who currently serves as a first team and lead coach for the Under-21s.

Dagnabbit! Well, that just dills my pickle! Or something. It’s only Shania Twain again with a reshowing of her performance of “That Don’t Impress Me Much” from last week. Do I have to review this again? I made my feelings about it quite clear in the last post. I’ve told my Shania tribute act story before haven’t I? Yes, I’m sure I have. Erm…what about her fashion choices and specifically that leopard print all in one hoodie. What was all that about? Apparently, Shania loves leopard print. There’s even a video on YouTube which she made for Elle magazine in which she explains why leopard print is her neutral. How can that be?! How can leopard print be neutral?! It’s one of the most eye-catching/garish (delete as appropriate) things you could ever wear. To be fair, I didn’t watch the whole video – two minutes of Shania describing her ‘cowgirl’ fashion was more than enough – so maybe she does give a reason for that bizarre statement but I guess I’ll never know. I’ll live with(out) it.

Manchester United Treble link: United midfielder Roy Keane was famously suspended for the final (alongside Paul Scholes) so he missed out on all the drama and glory. However, how many of his team mates have a song about them to the tune of “That Don’t Impress Me Much”?

Now here’s a song that immediately takes me back to late Spring/early Summer 1999 when I hear it. It also has strong connotations with a certain American teen drama series but I’ll get to that later. Sixpence None The Richer formed in 1992 as a Christian alternative rock band (I never knew there was such a genre!) taking their name from a passage in a C.S. Lewis book. However, it wasn’t until 98/99 that they emerged from the closet (that’s a Narnia reference rather than any comment on their sexuality) into the pop mainstream with their worldwide hit “Kiss Me”. A rather lovely, jangly guitar piece, it was in a similar vein to “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories from 1994 and the soundtrack to the film Reality Bites. Perhaps a bit more indie in nature though. Certainly the music press likened it to something that The Sundays might have recorded. Like Loeb’s hit, “Kiss Me” was also the theme tune to a film – teen rom com She’s All That starring Freddie Prinze Jr and Matthew Lillard who, coincidentally, were also in that aforementioned Scooby Doo movie that featured Sugar Ray.

However, it’s not that film which is its strongest association for me. That would be its inclusion on the soundtrack to the US teen drama Dawson’s Creek. Featuring some of the most overly earnest and verbose teenage characters ever seen on TV, this show used to be shown on a Sunday morning on Channel 4 as part of their T4 output and it was perfect ‘hangover programming’ for those of us who’d had one drink too many the night before. Some of my Our Price colleagues were well into this show and would play its soundtrack constantly in the shop. Perhaps by osmosis, I also got into it and actually went back recently to finish watching all five series (I stopped initially at two). Was it worth my time and effort to see whether Dawson or Pacey ended up with Joey? Probably not but at least it was a more satisfying ending than Lost. As for Sixpence None The Richer, they would have one more UK hit – a brave possibly foolhardy cover of “There She Goes” by The Las – before splitting in 2004 and subsequently reuniting three years later and were still gigging with the likes of 10,000 Maniacs as recently as 2023.

Manchester United Treble link: Sixpence None The Richer are known for having a “jangly” guitars sound – a high-frequency, treble-heavy tone characteristic of 90s college rock.

After three different boybands occupied the No 1 slot in recent weeks and with ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell unable to dislodge them from their throne, it was time for a different strategy from women in music. Instead of all girl groups, a new wave of female chart hopefuls arrived in the form of all girl bands who played their instruments. Now of course this wasn’t a completely new phenomenon. In the 70s we had South African band Clout of “Substitute” fame, whilst in America came The Runaways. Into the 80s, the same country also gave us The Go-Go’s and The Bangles whilst in dear old Blighty we had heavy rockers Girlschool. In the 90s, we had a rush of almost all girl indie bands like L7 and The Breeders but an out and out all girl mainstream rock/pop band? I’m struggling to think of many before Hepburn. Obviously named after Audrey, their debut hit “I Quit” wasn’t a cover of the old Bros track (thank God!) but a song co-written and produced by Phil Thornalley who’d been one of the people behind Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”. Indeed, the ex-Neighbours actor had been offered “I Quit” but had declined to record it. I think she might have made the right decision as it’s not the strongest track. I mean yes, it’s got a rather shouty chorus hook but there’s not a lot else to it. The lyrics are a bit clunky (rhyming ‘liar’ with ‘messiah’ for example, or is that actually genius?) and the lead singers vocals aren’t the best (is that southern twang affected or natural?).

As with Sugar Ray and Sixpence None The Richer, there was a TV/film tie in with Hepburn as “I Quit” appeared on the soundtrack to Buffy the Vampire Slayer which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar (who also starred in the Scooby Doo movie).Apparently, the band were meant to appear in an episode of Buffy in the background of a scene but it never happened. Talking of Sixpence None The Richer, doesn’t the intro to “I Quit” sound a bit like “Kiss Me”? I don’t know why I’ve been trying to shoehorn connections to Manchester United into this post – there are plenty of other links all over this TOTP! In Hepburn’s wake came Thunderbugs (bizarrely, the follow up to “I Quit” was called “Bugs”) and 21st Century Girls but the whole scene was short lived with all three bands named above barely making it into the new millennium before collectively saying “I Quit”.

Manchester United Treble link: David Beckham’s wife Victoria has cited Audrey Hepburn as a favorite actress. Their former home – ‘Beckingham Palace’ – famously had a bathroom featuring walls covered entirely in photos of Audrey Hepburn.

The boyband-at-No 1 sequence has been broken by a record that was an underground club sensation and his since secured a near legendary reputation in the UK Garage scene. Despite working in a record shop at the time, I didn’t pick up on any of this and to me, it was just another dance hit by some anonymous producers. The names Steven Meade and Danny Langsman probably don’t mean much to those of us on the outside of the world of garage music but the monikers Shanks & Bigfoot probably do cut through. “Sweet Like Chocolate” was the track that assured their fame and legacy. Originally released just as a promo with a limited run of 1,000 copies in 1998, it was heavily promoted by KISS FM despite not having an official release. Its saturation rotation caused a record label bidding war for the rights to the track which was eventually won by Jive and when it was finally made available in the shops, it stormed to the top of the charts selling a quarter of a million copies in the first week and more than the rest of the Top 5 combined.

Thankfully we don’t get a forced studio appearance here with the usual staging conundrums associated with a dance act but the rather sweet animated video which added to the song’s appeal, perhaps picking up some sales from the younger end of the record buying public to boot. I could have done without the personal message from Shanks & Bigfoot themselves though. Why was it so successful? Don’t ask me. I didn’t dare go near the dance collections section of the Our Price I worked in so confusing were the myriad of genres. It was genuinely more challenging to me than shoplifters.

Manchester United Treble link: Manchester United’s biggest rivals are Liverpool whose manager between 1959 and 1974 was the legendary Bill Shankly otherwise known as “Shanks”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Precious	Say It Again	No
2	Texas	Summer Son	Nope
3	Sugar Ray	Every Morning	Negative
4	Travis	Driftwood	No but I had a promo sampler of the album
5	Shania Twain	That Don’t Impress Me Much	NEVER
6	Sixpence None The Richer	Kiss Me	I did not
7	Hepburn	I Quit	Nah
8	Shanks & Bigfoot	Sweet Like Chocolate	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002sjbj/top-of-the-pops-28051999

TOTP 21 MAY 1999

Posted on 12 Days Ago by 80stastic

Looking at the running order for this TOTP, there’s only three songs in it that I remember how they sound and one of those I really wish I didn’t. And this from a man who was working in a mainstream record chain at the time (I even have photo evidence that I’ll share at some point). I mean, I must have sold some of these singles over the counter to customers – they might as well have been tins of beans it seems.

Our host is Scott Mills and we start with the one hit that I so wish I could delete from my memory banks. 1999 had already given us some resolutely dubious moments but we have arrived at the point in time when it offered up the Shania Twain crossover pivot. Up until now, the Canadian singer had been of a definite country flavour to those of us who were not members of her fan base, the casual listeners per se. She’d had a sizeable hit with an inoffensive ballad in “You’re Still The One” and a couple of minor charting follow ups but I’d thought that maybe that would be that for Shania and never the Twain would meet with the UK Top 40 again.

However, I hadn’t banked on “That Don’t Impress Me Much”. I can’t tell you him much this song annoys me. Actually, I can. I HATE IT! I DETEST IT! I DESPISE IT! Why? Because of its inane lyrics that name check Brad Pitt and the way she delivers them especially when the song pauses and she almost sarcastically speaks rather than sings the lines. Then there’s the hideous synth sound parping away in the background that makes it sound like an advertising jingle. Most of all though, I can’t stand that so many people not just bought into the song but actually bought it in enough copies to take it to No 3 for three consecutive weeks and for it to spend nearly five months inside the Top 40. “That Don’t Impress Me Much” was the crucial piece of the pie that transformed Shania from a country singer to a mainstream pop star peddling material that allowed the record buying public to convince themselves that their tastes hadn’t been hijacked by country & western music. It wasn’t even ‘new country’, it was…country-pop? Pop- country? Not very snappy is it? Perhaps if I shortened the word ‘country’? Oh. Well, that particular amalgamation results in an unfortunate (if accurate) description. Whatever it was, it didn’t impress me much. Ahem. Unbelievably, as soon as “That Don’t Impress Me Much” finally dropped out of the charts, Shania released an even more nauseating single in “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”! but I can only deal with so much bad music from a single artist in one post.

So all that promotion, all that marketing, all that hype couldn’t actually deliver Geri Halliwell a No 1 with her debut solo single “Look At Me”. In the end, she couldn’t get past a Boyzone cover version of yet another ballad and had to be content with the runners up spot. It must have been a disappointment to her and her label but it would all turn out OK as her next four singles did top the charts. Three of them were from her album “Schizophonic” which went double platinum in the UK, selling two million copies worldwide. I guess commercial popularity didn’t come in spades for Robbie Williams initially so maybe team Geri didn’t panic.

However, despite a continuation of that success into the new millennium with her cover of “It’s Raining Men” going to No 1 in 2001, that old chestnut diminishing returns raised its head again. It left a calling card with sophomore album “Scream If You Wanna Go Faster” which made the Top 5 but sold a sixth of its predecessor. By the time of third album “Passion” in 2005, (who knew there was a third album!), diminishing returns was banging on Geri’s front door demanding to be let in. After 12 months of being on the shelves, it had only sold 10,000 copies. Very few people seemed to be looking at or, more crucially, listening to Geri at that time.

OK so here’s a potentially unpopular opinion – why were Space dismissed as a novelty group (including by my friend Robin who described them as a “joke band”) but Super Furry Animals were seen as credible, authentic and cool (Cymru)? Weren’t there a fair few similarities between the two bands? Both had a quirky sound that was hard to define with beguiling lyrics drawn from unconventional subject matter featuring unusual musical instruments. Both had lead singers with distinctive voices and an anti-pop image and both seemed to achieve commercial success by not bandwagon jumping nor riding the zeitgeist. And yet, it see seems to me, that it was the Welsh band that were taken more seriously than their Liverpool counterparts. I could be wrong of course. But then I listen to something like “Northern Lites” and I think there is something in my comparison. It’s typically Super Furry Animals in that it’s an untypical pop song featuring what sounds like a Mariachi band and a steel drum somewhere in the mix.

Isn’t there a Space song that features a Mariachi band? If not then something similar? After all, their musical mission statement was described thusly:

“Space is all about making songs with all the latest technology and throwing every genre of music into the mix to come up with something mad.”

Tommy Scott, summing up Space’s approach to Transatlantic Modern in 2020.

Anyway, I quite liked “Northern Lites” though it isn’t one of my absolute favourites of theirs. Also, what was with the costumes that some of the guys up there on stage were wearing? What were they meant to be? Super Furry Animals? They look like badly designed football club mascots but then, as we’re talking about comparisons, nothing will ever compare to Kingsley, the Patrick Thistle FC mascot…

I’ve said this many times in this blog but there was clearly lots more to Skunk Anansie than my initial recollection of them which was basically their hit single “Weak”. The band’s many TOTP appearances (they were on ten times in total performing eight different songs, itself an indication of the breadth of their back catalogue) has introduced me to much more about them than I remembered or imagined there might be.

This week in 1999 they showed us what they would have done with a song for a James Bond movie had they ever been commissioned to do so. “Secretly” (even the song title had a spy/secret agent vibe) had a string section backing to it that sparked 007 connections in my synapses. The verses are delicately delivered leading into a beautifully elongated chorus which showcased one of Skin’s more controlled vocals. Apparently the song did feature in a film but not of the James Bond variety – it plays over the credits of the 1999 teen romantic drama Cruel Intentions which was based on the 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Duane Harden didn’t have much luck when it came to establishing his name as a singer did he? Despite being the vocalist on a No 1 record, most people knew it as an Armand Van Helden track (even the song’s title rubbed the salt in – “You Don’t Know Me”). Undeterred, for his next release, he teamed up with New York disco house DJ Lenny Fontana (a better pop star name than Duane Harden I would suggest – the latter sounds more like a porn than pop star) aka Powerhouse and they delivered No 13 hit and dance chart No 1 “What You Need”. Nothing to do with the early INXS single, it actually sampled a Thelma Houston tune but reminded me of 1986 Chicago house anthem “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk featuring Darryl Pandy. Not that I know what I’m talking about of course. What I do know is that Duane never did have another UK Top 40 hit. Seemingly Harden didn’t have what we needed ultimately.

Referring back to my statement at the start of this post, I think I may have reached the crossover point where there are more songs in the 1999 charts that I don’t know than there are that I do. Who the hell were 1000 Clowns and why did their lead singer and rapper Kevi look like such a big dork? “(Not the) Greatest Rapper” was their only UK hit and it’s another track that reminds me of something else. We’d heard a flute riff (do flutes have riffs?) on a dance/rap hit back in 1993 courtesy of Stakka Bo and their song “Here We Go”…

I have to say I prefer Stakka Bo to 1000 Clowns. Maybe it’s the slower bpm or the delivery from Kevi but it just sounds (and looks) so lame. Death by 1000 cuts or listen to 1000 Clowns? The answer is the latter of course but it really shouldn’t have been that close a call.

When Oasis announced that they were reforming for a world tour, many leapt to the conclusion that it was to pay for Noel Gallagher’s divorce. If it was, he wasn’t the first Mancunian rock star to pull such a stunt. Back in 1999, the Happy Mondays were suddenly back together allegedly to help pay off outstanding tax bills owed by Shaun Ryder to HMRC. Following the legendary disastrous gestation period and release of the band’s fourth studio album “Yes Please!” had brought about the end of Factory Records, the Mondays were no more and Ryder and Bez moved on to Black Grape. A comeback looked very unlikely but, as so often is the case, money is the root of all reunions and so an international and UK tour was undertaken including two nights at the Brixton Academy and a sell out of the 20,000 capacity Manchester Arena. They even supported the aforementioned Oasis on their ‘Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants’ tour.

Obviously, a Greatest Hits album was released to tie in with all this touring and to promote that, a single was released. A very loose cover version of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” was selected for the job which is what we are ‘treated’ to in this TOTP appearance, their first for nearly seven years and only fifth in total. Still, that’s not a bad number for a group that were banned from the show following their first appearance after Ryder told a pompous BBC suit to “f**k off knobhead” backstage. The disparity from the attitude of that initial TOTP outing to the nonsense of this appearance is striking. If it looks like a shambles and sounds like a shambles, it is a shambles. Just awful to watch and I say that as someone who has seen the Happy Mondays live. The band have reformed and disbanded a few times since but are currently touring to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of “Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches”. I’m betting that “The Boys Are Back In Town” doesn’t make the set list.

So here’s the song that beat that much promoted Geri Halliwell single to the top spot and it’s yet another crappy Boyzone cover version. Apparently their label Polydor gave them the option of delaying the release of “You Needed Me” by a week to avoid going head to head with Halliwell but they declined the option presumably because they were supremely confident in their own single’s ability to shift units or they’d got to the point where they didn’t care anymore. I think the latter might be the case. Whatever the truth is, it was surely one in the eye for Geri.

Originally an American No 1 for Anne Murray in 1978 (it only made No 22 over here), Boyzone’s take on “You Needed Me” meant that seven of their fifteen hits up to this point had been other people’s songs – nearly half of them. Cover versions also accounted for three of their total of six No 1s (of which this was the final one). Perhaps the most significant stat though was that the last three UK chart toppers in 1999 were by boybands – Westlife, Backstreet Boys and now Boyzone. Was girl power over?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shania Twain	That Don’t Impress Me Much	NOOOOOO!
2	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	Nah
3	Super Furry Animals	Northern Lites	Nope
4	Skunk Anansie	Secretly	Negative
5	Powerhouse featuring Duane Harden	What You Need	It wasn’t
6	1000 Clowns	(Not the) Greatest Rapper	No
7	Happy Mondays	The Boys Are Back In Town	I did not
8	Boyzone	You Needed Me	Never

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002s7dl/top-of-the-pops-21051999

TOTP 14 MAY 1999

Posted on 15 Days Ago by 80stastic

I’ve done a lot of themed posts lately but this one is going to just be a straight run through of the music on the show. That’s how I started out doing this blog nine years ago so maybe it’s time for a back to basics approach. Jayne Middlemiss is our host and we start with a boy band who’d just had their first No 1 with their last single. 911 had finally got to the top with a cover version of Dr Hook’s “A Little Bit More”. That had been preceded by another treatment of someone else’s song – “More Than A Woman” by the Bee Gees. And guess what? This song- “Private Number” – was yet another cover with the 1968 original by Judy Clay and William Bell having been a No 8 hit. There’s a reason for all of this – parent album “There It Is” was made up entirely of cover versions. I know boy bands taking on other people’s songs was an established tactic when it came to securing a hit single but did they really need to do a whole album of them? In fact, which artists did they put their own spin on?

*checks track listing*

Well, mostly it was the soul/R&B/disco genre that they plundered with the likes of Tavares, Heatwave, The Real Thing and Shalamar represented. However, a couple of other tracks stood out – Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “You’re The Best Thing” by The Style Council. I guess the choice of the former kind of makes sense – a genuine pop classic (I’m talking of its stature and profile rather than its musical quality) but the latter?! That’s not right is it?! Dare I listen to the 911 version? I do…

*listens to 911 version*

As expected, completely pointless! Sanitised, soulless, plastic…just horrible. Why do I put myself through these things? Anyway, “Private Number” would do the business for the trio by going Top 3 but 911’s pop star journey was coming to an end. There would be only one more hit (the No 13 “Wonderland”) from a Greatest Hits album and that was it. Lead singer Lee Brennan and Spike Dawbarn made the decision to split the group (third member Jimmy Constable wasn’t in on the decision apparently) and there would be no more until the first of a series of reunions in 2008.

As for the performance here, they show Westlife how to do it by sitting on stools throughout and dressed in white and beige – appropriately the colours of the nondescript. Only the presence of the female singer on the piano breaks up the monotony. Wikipedia tells me she is Natalie Jordan who worked with the likes of Louise and Matthew Marsden. Not much surprising there but the fact that she was one of the co-writers on the track “Superheroes” on Stormzy’s “Heavy Is The Head” album did peak my interest. One more thing. A group named after one of the most well known telephone numbers in the world singing a song called “Private Number” is a bit ironic isn’t it?

We have arrived at the point in the dance obsessed 90s where even Bryan Adams sat at the bpm counter and added a backbeat to his songs. Well, one song. For the moment anyway. Said song was “Cloud #9” or “Cloud Number Nine” as it was originally titled on the album “A Day Like Today”. The third single taken from the album, Adams decided he wanted to shake things up a bit by having it remixed. Step forward Nicholas Bracegirdle aka Chicane who’d had a hit with the track “Offshore” a couple of years before. So how different was the dance remix from the original? Having listened to both, there is a definite distinction between them but we were hardly talking the Armand van Helden remix of Tori Amos’s “Professional Widow” here. The album version is a fairly straightforward soft-rock song the like of which Adams specialised in. The remix adds an echoey, looped intro and a familiar backbeat but the basic tune remained intact. It proved to be a good decision with the single edit making No 6. The album was rereleased with the Chicane remix added as an extra track which has become the recognised and accepted version.

This performance sees Bry with a full on turn of the millennium floppy haircut in stark contrast to the slick, short back and sides he sports today. The all white backdrop and outfits that him and his band are wearing jar a bit (who did they think they were – Westlife? 911?) but I assume it’s to tie in with the idea of ‘clouds’? Adams would see out the decade with a second Best Of album and started the 2000s with an improbable No 1 single when he returned the favour and supplied (electronically altered) vocals for the Chicane single “Don’t Give Up”.

The saga of Whitney Houston’s “It’s Not Right Buy It’s Okay” and its multiple TOTP appearances has only just ended and we’re immediately embroiled in another such chronicle. Yes, just three weeks on from the final performance of her previous single, here was Whitney back with the follow up “My Love Is Your Love”. Now, I posited the theory the other week that the reason we got all these repeat appearances on the show was that Whitney’s management had insisted that she would only do a studio appearance for the BBC if it was shown a certain amount of times. Could the follow up be a part of the same deal? It would be shown three times in total so if you add that figure to the five times that “It’s Not Right Buy It’s Okay” was shown then that’s quite a package especially if the performances for both songs were recorded together in the studio one after the other which I’m thinking is maybe possible. To be clear, I haven’t gone forensic over this – it just seems likely to me.

As with the promotion for Geri Halliwell’s “Look At Me”, the marketing behind this one was comprehensive. The single wasn’t even released until June 21st and we wouldn’t see it again on the show until July 2nd, six weeks after this debut performance. Record label Arista were playing a long game. It worked though. “My Love Is Your Love” would debut at No 2 and spend seven weeks in the Top 10 whilst the knock on sales of its parent album saw it spend over a month inside the Top 5.

As for the song’s sound, listening back to it now was like hearing Whitney do her best Fugees impression and then, lo and behold, I read that it was produced by Wyclef Jean and it all made sense. There’s also an element of Bob Marley in there (whom the Fugees covered themselves of course) but what’s most revealing is Whitney’s restrained vocals on it which belie her ‘shouty diva’ persona. As we’ll be coming back to this one, I’ll leave it there for now.

Who?! Fierce? I’ve got nothing but clearly they were yet another R&B girl group. Would it be fair to say that they were not in the very elite strata of that genre? By that I mean they were more N-Tyce than TLC. Their discography shows that they had four chart hits including this one “Dayz Like That” and a version of Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” which went Top 3 in 2000 which suggests I should have a better memory of them.

Hang on though. A post on X by @TOTPFacts has rung a bell….

Fierce’s Chantel Alleyne is now the office manager for a tech company. She was a contestant on Deal or No Deal last year. and won £1050. https://t.co/NaT8NF6NWJ #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 6, 2026

I do remember this! I have a weakness for Deal Or No Deal and the late working hours of my job mean I’m quite often around in the daytime when it’s on. Stephen Mulhearn asked Chantel about being in a girl group but I don’t think I realised it was one that had achieved actual chart success. Well, at least it’s a spin on being on the ‘Identity Parade’ section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks!

The staggered and ultimately truncated chart career of Kula Shaker was nearly at its end with the release of “Shower Your Love”. For a band that once appeared to have the world at their feet, it was quite the implosion. After their first album “K” had become the fastest selling debut album by a UK artist eventually going double platinum and a BRIT Award for ‘British Breakthrough Act’, the road to further success was blocked by a series of rucks with the press. The long established tabloid tactic of building someone up only to knock them down came into play with the show business family tree of Crispian Mills a target. The singer’s ill advised comments about the cultural references and mystical properties of the Swastika symbol certainly didn’t help either. Then there was the loss of momentum caused by delays to release schedules causing a gap of two and a half years between albums punctuated by the appearances of just two singles. The second of those – “Sound Of Drums” – was meant to be the lead single from sophomore album “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” but the parent collection wasn’t in the shops for another year. By the time it came out, it sold just a sixth of its predecessor “K”.

It was all a bit of a shame as I’d always liked them. “Shower Your Love”, for example, is a great tune if a little psychedelic heavy. It would prove to be the band’s last Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 14. After splitting in 1999, they reconvened in 2004 and have been a going concern ever since releasing six studio albums in that time with the most recent arriving in January this year and securing their highest chart position (No 13) since “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts”. Like those other 90s bands Jesus Jones and The Bluetones, they continue to play live gigs to audiences who, like them, aren’t ready for the story to end just yet.

There’s a big dance tune in the charts at No 12 which TOTP Executive Producer Chris Cowey can’t ignore so yet again he’s had to come up with an ever more desperate way to showcase it on prime time TV. There have been some epic failures on this score throughout the 90s era of the show and this one is no exception. There may be a reason why, for Pete Heller’s hit “Big Love”, they chose to go with two men wearing (paper mache?) elephant heads (do they feature in the promo video?) and a third with a cardboard box on his noggin (a parody of stacking boxes dance moves?) but I really can’t be arsed to look into it. To add to the surreal nature of the performance, a stop-frame effect has been added. Was this meant to somehow imitate a club atmosphere with strobe lighting or something? It just seems to elongate time and make the whole thing last twice as long as it should.

So who was/is Pete Heller? Well, he’s a house music producer from Brighton…wait, what? Another prominent dance music figure from the East Sussex seaside resort? If dance music was a football club, it would be my beloved Chelsea – both are obsessed with Brighton. Whilst we’ve plundered The Seagulls for the players Marc Cucurella, Robert Sanchez and Moises Caicedo for a combined price of £200 million (and disastrously pinched their manager Graham Potter), Brighton has given dance music Fatboy Slim, Phats & Small and now Pete Heller as well? No doubt “Big Love” was a bangin’ anthem but I don’t have to tell you that this did/does nothing for me do I?

The best song on the show? I think so (with an honourable mention to Kula Shaker) and it was certainly the track that made me think I should own a copy of “Performance And Cocktails” by the Stereophonics. The third hit from the album, “Pick A Part That’s New” had all those components I normally look for in a song – great hooks, edgy guitar riffs and strong vocals. After “The Bartender And The Thief” and “Just Looking” both went Top 5, the fact that the album’s next single could also pull off that same chart achievement shows the quality and strength of its material. Their promotion from just another post-Britpop band to major rock stars was under way.

Written about feeling underwhelmed by the band’s first trip to America, Kelly Jones explained that he felt he’d seen it all before through the medium of TV and films and that perception didn’t match up to the reality. I have to say that isn’t what I experienced the first time I visited New York in 1994. In fact, it did feel like being in a film walking down Fifth Avenue.

Oh God. How did it come to this? For the first time ever the Top 3 is a complete boy band zone being occupied by 911, Westlife and the Backstreet Boys who have their first and (mercifully) only No 1 single with “I Want It That Way”. And guess what? Next week’s No 1 is *SPOILER ALERT* bloody Boyzone! It’s not like we weren’t warned about Backstreet Boys though. Their last five singles peaked at:

2 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 2

A chart topper was always likely with those sorts of numbers. The song that eventually did it for them was awful though. Cynically designed in the fiendish Dr Bad Pop Music’s laboratory, it brainwashed the country’s female teenage population into thinking these chancers were a big thing, nay the real deal even. They were neither. Well, they were a big deal in terms of selling records but since when was that an indication of anything resembling talent. Even Mr Blobby had a No 1. For the first few times I heard “I Want It That Way”, I could have sworn that, in the second line of the chorus, they were singing “ain’t nothing but a piss-take” as opposed to “ain’t nothing but a mistake”. Maybe it was my bias influencing my ears as piss-takers was definitely what this lot were. They out-Westlife Westlife, 911 and even Bryan Adams in this performance with their stools, all white outfits and fake earnest nonsense. This was just deplorable stuff. 1999 – you have a lot to answer for.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	911	Private Number	Never
2	Bryan Adams	Cloud #9	Nope
3	Whitney Houston	My Love Is Your Love	Nah
4	Fierce	Dayz Like That	No
5	Kula Shaker	Shower Your Love	Good song but no
6	Pete Heller	Big Love	Not my bag at all
7	Stereophonics	Pick A Part That’s New	Not the single but I had the album
8	Backstreet Boys	I Want It That Way	As if

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002s7dj/top-of-the-pops-14051999

TOTP 07 MAY 1999

Posted on 18 Days Ago by 80stastic

It’s early May 1999 here at TOTP Rewind and that can only mean one thing – the culmination of the football season! Despite only losing three games all season, my beloved Chelsea have blown the league by drawing too many matches and would finish third to a Man United team on their way to an historic treble. However, it was in League Division Three where all the drama was the day after this TOTP aired. Specifically, at Brunton Park, Carlisle where a near legendary game would play out. Carlisle United were fighting a dire relegation battle which, if lost, would condemn them to demotion to non-league football. It would be either them or Scarborough who would fall through the trap door. Carlisle needed a win but with time running out, the score in their game was locked at 1-1. Scarborough’s match had finished and they were safe as things stood but a Carlisle goal would reverse that situation and relegate Scarborough. With just 10 seconds left on the clock, the home team won a corner and Carlisle’s goalkeeper, one Jimmy Glass, was given the signal from his manager to go up the pitch to join in one last attack. Glass was only playing after being loaned from Swindon Town after a Carlisle goalkeeping emergency and this would be the last of three games he ever played for them. As the corner came in, this happened…

…pure, chaotic drama with a fairytale ending (for Carlisle at least). It’s the stuff of legend. However, for Glass, this wouldn’t be the fillip to his career that some might have assumed. There was no big money move to an elite club following his heroics; in fact, Carlisle United didn’t even sign him permanently and he only played a handful of professional games for a couple of clubs before drifting into non-league football and ultimately retiring from the game aged just 27. I wonder if any Glass related parallels can be drawn with the acts on this episode of TOTP?

Our host is Kate Thornton, and just as Jimmy Glass’s time at Carlisle United was coming to an end, this would be her final TOTP appearance. She only got to present ten shows which is a shame I think as she seemed a fairly safe pair of hands. Her first duty on her valedictory programme is to introduce Phats & Small on their fourth appearance on the show with “Turn Around”. There really can’t be anything else to say about this one can there? Well, it was back on TOTP as it had risen from No 8 to No 7 having already peaked at No 2. Yeah, that’s not exactly riveting reading material is it? I did notice that Phats & Small (the blokes on the decks as opposed to the singer) were wearing Skint Records T-shirts despite not being on that label – they were on Multiply, the people who brought us Sash! Skint was the home of Fatboy Slim and was based in Brighton which is where Phats & Small were from hence the connection I’m guessing? Russell Small is a big Brighton fan and they were in the same division as Carlisle United in 1998/99 finishing 17th out of 24, with only seven more points than bottom club Scarborough.

Jimmy Glass moment: You can’t get a bigger ‘turnaround’ moment than a last ditch winner to save your team from relegation can you?

It’s four consecutive appearances for Martine McCutcheon on the show but two of them were while “Perfect Moment” was at No 1 so I can’t argue with that. She was still in the Top 5 by the time of this final outing. Even so, it seems a little bit like overkill to me but then I wasn’t writing a TOTP blog back in 1999 and not watching two shows back to back as per the BBC4 schedule of repeats in 2026 so maybe I wouldn’t have noticed back then. As with Phats & Small, I’m struggling to find anything else to say about this one. Let me trawl the internet for a minute…

*blogger trawls internet*

Oh this is brilliant! No, really. Martine once went on a date with Mick Hucknall. She was very nervous, was drinking continually, hadn’t eaten anything and when she got in a car with him and the engine turned over she spewed all over him! Just fabulous work!

Jimmy Glass moment: Is there a more ‘perfect moment’ in football than Jimmy’s last minute winner?

If any of us thought that The Offspring’s chart topper “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” was destined to be a one-off, well we were right and wrong. The US pop-punk rockers never did have another UK No 1 but they came within a whisker of bagging another when follow up “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” debuted at No 2 meaning that they certainly weren’t one-hit wonders. However, avoiding that status didn’t come without criticism. Nobody with even a perfunctory knowledge of The Beatles could listen to “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and not immediately think “Hang on, that’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!”. And it was although the lyrics were very different to the Fab Four’s original, detailing two miserable sounding relationships from the point of view of both a man and a woman complaining about the laziness of their partners and their lack of any discernible income. The opening two lines include the word “bitch” which the BBC censors decided to muffle for this TOTP appearance. I don’t think they did that when Meredith Brooks was on the show but then I think the gender of the singer was pivotal there. Given the song that it was based on, “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” was always going to be a catchy tune which certainly didn’t harm its chart chances though Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland’s strained live vocals in this performance might have adversely affected them. He really couldn’t hit those higher notes. It’s a very scratchy affair altogether.

Of course, Scottish band Marmalade beat The Offspring to it by over 30 years with an actual cover of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!” which went to No 1 in the UK though this little known pop song from the 80s always makes me think that Owen Paul had been listening to The Beatles’ original when he recorded it.

Jimmy Glass moment: When Jimmy’s football career ended, he needed to go and get a conventional job and worked as both an IT salesman and a taxi driver.

With another airing for “No Scrubs” by TLC, it means that three of the first four hits on this show were clocking up their fourth TOTP appearance. Come on Cowey! Sort it out! And no, I don’t care that TLC were up to No 3, their highest position in six weeks. However, the chart trajectory of this single is interesting. A debut at No 7 followed by an immediate drop out of the Top 10 to No 13. An expected descent down the Top 40 failed to materialise as “No Scrubs” lurched back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven weeks. Even within that time period it moved up and down before finally reaching its peak of No 3 having fallen as low as No 9 the week before. How to explain this? It may be something to do with the delayed release of the its accompanying video. An MTV Award winning, sci-fi themed promo featuring the group in different coloured space suits, was its eventual delivery to video channels linked to its rise up the charts? If so, TOTP clearly didn’t get the memo/video as they stuck to showing that same satellite performance for every one of its four appearances on the show. Am I overstating the importance of this video? Maybe but there is some context to this situation, specifically that the group weren’t allowed into Europe for promotional duties possibly due to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez’s criminal record following an incident in 1994 when she set fire to her boyfriend’s trainers which led to their mansion burning down.

One more thing, the intro to this one from Kate Thornton is a bit inappropriate. “Now going up the charts, those bad girls from Atlanta. No scrubs, no scrubbers – it’s TLC!”. No scrubbers Kate? And I thought she was a safe pair of hands!

Jimmy Glass moment: “No Scrubs” is from an album called “Fanmail” and I’m sure that Jimmy Glass got some fan mail after his last minute heroics in 1999.

Well, this is a damn shame. Of the three singles released from the sophomore album “100% Colombian” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals, the one which I bought – “Big Night Out” – is the only one that failed to warrant a TOTP appearance. Boo! Not that the two that did make it were worthless – they weren’t – but..you know. Anyway, the third of those releases was “Korean Bodega” which does sound pretty cool compared to most of its chart contemporaries but also very familiar. It’s something about that guitar riff that runs through it. I can’t place which song it reminds me of but it’s certainly recognisable.

Despite it happening in 2021, I’m not sure that I was aware that Huey Morgan had left the band. They are still an ongoing entity but it’s kind of hard to imagine them without their charismatic frontman. The band have released one album since Huey’s departure but continue to perform live.

Jimmy Glass moment: There is a track on the “100% Colombian” album called “All My Time Is Gone” which was so nearly true for Carlisle United that day in 1999 until Jimmy Glass strode forward into the box with ten seconds to go…

It’s the return of Cast next whom we had not seen in the Top 40 for 18 months. Indeed, it had been two years since their last album “Mother Nature Calls” which, though a commercial success, had divided critics. Third album “Magic Hour” therefore had a lot riding on it. The lead single from it was “Beat Mama”, a relentlessly upbeat track with a looped guitar riff and sparse, almost non-specific lyrics. Maybe the latter didn’t matter though as it was all about the feel. I liked it I have to say.

However, when I think about “Beat Mama”, its sound isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Let me explain. The week that it came out, the shop stereo in the Our Price store I was working in suddenly stopped working one morning. That’s pretty much a disaster for a record shop. As a last resort, we brought down to the shop floor the only thing we had that could play music – a tiny, portable CD player/radio that was in the stock room that staff working in there could listen to. It sounded tinny and pathetic as we opened the doors to the public. The first CD that we put on to play through it? “Beat Mama”. We couldn’t spend the whole day with this as the output for our in-store music so I decided to try and fix the shop stereo’s misfiring speakers. Quite why I thought I had the knowledge to do this I don’t know. Somehow I did get them working again though – it must have been something simple like a loose connection. However, at one point I had the speakers wired up so that two different songs were playing out of them at the same time. How did I manage that? To this day I’m wary of doing anything technical in our house beyond changing a light bulb on account of this.

Jimmy Glass moment: Cast hail from Liverpool. In May 2021, Liverpool FC’s goalkeeper Alisson scored a 95th minute winning goal versus WBA with a header prompting immediate comparisons with Jimmy Glass.

Despite this being its second time on the show, you still couldn’t actually buy “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell in the shops as it wasn’t released until the Monday after this TOTP aired. The promotion on this one was huge but then it was always going to be. The first official solo single by an (ex-) Spice Girl was big news. After being served up the official promo video on its last outing, we get an exclusive performance of the song this time, again introduced by Geri herself. It’s all very over the top with Halliwell backed by four male dancers on a set that includes an elaborate staircase and chaise longue as props. It all seems a bit forced to me, trying a bit too hard to make it look like Geri was this kooky, zany character that we hadn’t really been aware of before. In the end, all that promotion couldn’t quite deliver the expected and presumably desperately wanted No 1 with “Look At Me” debuting in second place.

*Mel B’s “I Want You Back” had featured Missy Elliott whilst Melanie C had duetted with Bryan Adams on “When You’re Gone” before “Look At Me”.

Jimmy Glass moment: After his legendary winning goal, the whole world was looking at Jimmy.

Westlife remains at No 1 with “Swear It Again” and if that wasn’t annoying enough, for this performance, they’ve ditched the stools I said they always sat on therefore making me look like a lier! Apart from one of them, they’re all dressed in white which was another affectation of theirs but no doubt the next time they’re on, they’ll be dressed as goths just to spite me again! I swear it!

Jimmy Glass moment: Westlife had a No 1 with a cover of ABBA’s “I Have A Dream” and there was no more dream like moment in football than Jimmy Glass’s last second winner.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Phats & Small	Turn Around	I did not
2	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	No
3	The Offspring	Why Don’t You Get A Job?	Nah
4	TLC	No Scrubs	Nope
5	Fun Lovin’ Criminals	Korean Bodega	Not this one but the one before it
6	Cast	Beat Mama	Good song but no
7	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	No thanks
8	Westlife	Swear It Again	Never

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rxqk/top-of-the-pops-07051999

TOTP 30 APR 1999

Posted on 22 Days Ago by 80stastic

The day after this TOTP aired, Andrew Motion was announced as the next Poet Laureate in succession to previous incumbent Ted Hughes. His term would last ten years until he handed the baton to Carol Ann Duffy whilst the current Poet Laureate is Simon Armitage. You know what’s coming now…I wonder if the artists on tonight’s show have any connection with that role or poetry in general?

Our host is Jamie Theakston and we begin with last week’s No 1 (of course we do) which has been deposed and is currently No 3 in the charts. There was clearly a lot of belief, willingness and capacity from the management people behind Martine McCutcheon when it came to ensuring her transition from soap darling to pop star. From signing a significant record deal with Virgin, being given the song “Perfect Moment” as her debut single (a song A&R person Cheryl Robson had been sat on for three years) to having an hour-long television documentary about her journey from EastEnders actress to a singer, all the stops were being pulled out to make sure the project was a success. And a success it was. A No 2, platinum selling album, the 14th best selling single of the year and a pair of No 6 hits to follow.

It couldn’t sustain though. Two more albums quickly followed but failed to match the achievements of its predecessor. It seemed that appetite for Marine as a chart frequenter had been satiated. Why? For me, the cause of her commercial decline was that the initial burst of sales came off the back of her association with her EastEnders persona Tiffany. It’s as if people were in some sort of mourning for the death of that character and needed something to buy as a souvenir or keepsake. Then, the strength of her debut hit spilled over into sales for her album and before you knew it, momentum was created and away she went. However, the larger the distance of time that separated Martine from Tiffany, the less the connection between her and the public. That momentum waned until she was just another pop singer. Maybe she should have reactivated her pop career after her star turn in Love Actually when the public fell in love with another of her character portrayals. That didn’t happen and the last album she released came in 2017 which made a respectable No 17 in the charts but there has been nothing from her since…apart from this of course….

Poet Laureate link: “Perfect Moment” was written by Wendy Page and one J. Marr. In his podcast The Poet Laureate Has Gone To His Shed, Simon Armitage spoke to Johnny Marr about his life as a musician. OK, the J. Marr that co-wrote “Perfect Moment” wasn’t the ex-Smiths guitarist but give me a break!

Just like Suede on last week’s show, Texas were also making a bit of a comeback after being away for a couple of years and also like Brett and the boys, they had to make a decision about which musical direction should be part of their return route. Unlike Suede, it seemed to me that they decided to basically just replicate their previous album which had brought them into the mainstream and delivered all that commercial success associated with such a transition. I’m sure the band themselves would be able to point to all sorts of details that spelt out the differential nuances between “White On Blonde” and “The Hush” but to your average pop music consumer, it surely felt like more of the same. Certainly, lead single “In Our Lifetime” retained that radio friendly polish that we’d come to expect from the second coming of the band. What was different though was the fact that this was the first time that the band had not employed an external producer for an album, preferring instead to keep it in house with guitarist Johnny McElhone twiddling the knobs on the mixing desk.

The chart performance of “In Our Lifetime” suggested that the record buying public were more than happy with a healthy helping of what they’d been served up before as its peak of No 4 maintained the band’s run of Top 10 singles by becoming their sixth on the trot. And why not? It’s a perfectly decent rock/pop tune with its strident yet melodic looped guitar hook and ‘wickedy-wick’ sound effect that introduces the chorus plus, of course, Sharleen Spiteri’s smooth vocals. For the moment, Texas were still in the ascendancy and doing nothing wrong at all.

Poet Laureate link: The state of Texas has its own Poet Laureate designation scheme, appointing a new incumbent every one to two years to promote poetry and recognize the literary contributions of Texans.

Fancy a bit of Busta Rhymes? No, me neither but executive producer Chris Cowey did and to be fair, the rapper was at No 5 with his single “What’s It Gonna Be?!” so…At the risk of sounding like my Dad commenting on my musical preferences as a teenager, this was just noise and a horrible one at that. “The mightiest and fastest rapper” ever to appear on the show is how Jamie Theakston describes Rhymes. Well, he perhaps he was but that doesn’t mean he could make a record that was listenable and he didn’t with this track. Even the presence of Janet Jackson couldn’t save it though I’m not sure I could even hear her contribution over all that shouting which seems to be about making his baby’s body wet. Eeuuww! Cowey could at least have shown the video in full (rather than on a big screen in the background) seeing as it was one of the most expensive ever produced at a cost of $2 million. The sound mix was much better on the promo as well with Busta’s rantings toned down more than in this studio performance. Not for me thank you.

Poet Laureate link: Poetry? Busta Rhymes? Yeah, that’s all I’ve got for this one.

Some blatant and shameless self promotion next as the Beeb uses its historic, flagship music show to advertise another of its programmes. If Miami 7 doesn’t ring any bells then the collective noun for its stars certainly will. S Club 7 were put together by pop impresario Simon Fuller when he was left at a loose end after the Spice Girls gave him the boot as their manager and his first action was to put together another pop group but this time he’d recruit more compliant people who he perceived wouldn’t tell him where to get off as his previous charges had.

Despite the fact that the Spice Girls project had turned into a global marketing operation encompassing different media and more merchandising than anyone could possibly want or house, Fuller reckoned there were yet more promotional opportunities to be explored. He envisioned a brand that was cross-media marketable, that could conquer both the music charts and TV ratings. Teaming up with his brother Kim (who wrote the Spice World movie story), they devised the TV show Miami 7 which the BBC picked up and broadcast on their CBBC channel. It was only a month into its run at the point of this TOTP broadcast and so, with show still on our screens, the Beeb indulged in some cross channel promotion and we got to meet the show’s stars in the TOTP backstage area. Although the first S Club 7 single – “Bring It All Back” which also acted as the Miami 7 theme tune – was still a whole five weeks away from release, that didn’t stop us from being given a preview of the video for it which, quelle surprise, also included some clips from the show.

Of course, this whole pop group/TV show wasn’t an original Fuller idea. The Monkees project from the 60s famously got there first but even in the 90s it had been tried with the show No Sweat following the adventures of boy band North & South who would have four Top 40 hits between ‘97 and ‘98. That didn’t stop Miami 7 being a hit though and it would run for four seasons albeit under a different title for each series. Its success is widely acknowledged as being the motivation for bringing the world shows like High School Musical and Glee.

As for “Bring It All Back”, it would top the charts when finally released. An insanely catchy slice of bubblegum pop which inevitably and obviously generated comparisons with The Jackson 5, it also contained one of the greatest key changes in all of pop music history. As we’ll be seeing it another three times in these TOTP repeats I’ll leave it there for now but suffice to say that the S Club story would run for years involving success, heartbreak, solo careers, controversy, a juniors version spin off, splits, reunions and ultimately tragedy. Someone really should make a TV show or movie about it.

Poet Laureate link: Not really though there was a literary club known as Authors‘ Club whose membership included three Poets Laureate – Alfred Austin, John Masefield, and John Betjeman.

From a request to ‘Bring It All Back’ to a plea to “Bring My Family Back” courtesy of Faithless. They did make some dark records didn’t they and this one is no different with Maxi Jazz recounting the tale of a man who grew up in a broken family, whose wife left him with the kids after his infidelity with a work colleague and who slips through the cracks and end up living in a derelict slum and regretting his life decisions. At least, I think that’s what it’s about. Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan, I did quite like this. It’s kind of got an hypnotic quality to it which means you can’t help listening despite the grimness and misery of the lyrics. Someone who is a fan is a friend of mine who will become an octogenarian this month proving yet again that age can be just a number when it comes to musical taste.

Poet Laureate link: A genuine connection! Caleb Femi, who was named London’s first Young Poet Laureate (2016–2017), features on the 2020 Faithless album “All Blessed”. He delivers a rap/spoken-word performance on the track “I Need Someone”. The band’s Sister Bliss commented on the collaboration that for the album, they wanted to work with “thoughtful fresh talent” like Femi to honor the high lyrical bar set by their late frontman, Maxi Jazz.

Right what was going on here then? Watching this back without any prior knowledge/information, it looked like an attempt by TOTP executive producer Chris Cowey to really shake the format up which it was I guess but he couldn’t really lay claim to a totally original idea here. So, the dance music continued with the next two hits also coming firmly from that genre but there was a deliberate decision to tie the two together as Jamie Theakston gives them a combined intro – “This is Armand Van Helden versus Fatboy Slim”. We then get a studio performance by the former (featuring guest vocalist Roland Clark up front) and the video for the latter’s latest hit but the two are interspersed with clips of both of them entering a boxing ring. What gives?

Well, I didn’t have a clue so I looked it up and it turns out that Armand van Helden and Fatboy Slim were connected by their 1999 “A Date With Destiny” DJ battles. These high-profile, head-to-head gigs featured them competing in a boxing ring at venues like Brixton Academy. Ah, so that’s where that boxing imagery footage comes from! Basically Cowey just got permission to use it rather than it being anything that he set up himself. The boxing match theme is backed up by the fact that Van Helden’s last hit “You Don’t Know” knocked Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” off the top spot. There was a rematch when their follow ups (“Flowerz” for Van Helden and “Right Here, Right Now” by Fatboy Slim) were released in the same week. This time it was a knockout victory for the Fatboy with his single landing at No 2 whilst “Flowerz” couldn’t punch its weight and was left floundering at No 18. That’s a pretty decisive result despite Theakston saying in his segue that “Fortunately, there were no judges to pick a winner in this particular heavyweight contest so judge for yourselves”. Well, I think the record buying public were the judges Jamie and they made it very clear who their winner was. To be fair, it was a mismatch as “Flowerz” didn’t pack the same punch as its predecessor and never really gets itself off the canvas and into any sort of rhythm. There was no long lasting grudge held though as the duo reunited for performances at The Warehouse Project in Manchester and Drumsheds in London in November 2024.

Poet Laureate link: Ian Henery, the first ever Poet Laureate for Walsall, hosts a radio show on Black Country Xtra and has specifically named Armand Van Helden as a personal favourite from the golden era of house music.

OK, so. This is actually interesting as we just about see a DJ style fade from the Armand Van Helden tune into the video to “Right Here, Right Now” by Fatboy Slim. Fair play to Chris Cowey whom I’ve given a lot of stick to in this blog but the presentation on these two hits has been clever and effective. This was the fourth single lifted from the album “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” and it was yet another banger – Norman Cook really was in the groove here. It’s got the usual samples in it from sources I haven’t a clue about but it also has a sense of foreboding, imbuing the listener with the feeling that they’re about to hear something monumental. Then the Big Beats kick in and you’re off on an aural journey signposted by the creativity of Cook’s imagination.

The video hooks into that idea of a journey by depicting the course of human evolution from a single celled amoeba via a jellyfish, an amphibian, a primate an homo erectus before finally becoming a human. It was supposedly inspired by the 70s French animated educational television series Once Upon A Time…Man which I remember from reruns in the 80s, typically shown mid morning during the Summer holidays. It was a clever way of engaging kids in history and tracked the development of humans from the creation of the Earth through to a prediction up to the year 2150. I liked it as I recall though I’m not sure that I caught all 26 episodes.

Anyway, not long before the end of the “Right Here, Right Now” video, Cook himself pops up in a burger van with a message apologising for not being on the show in person before we return to the promo. I get that Cowey wouldn’t have turned down the chance of using such a piece of VT but it does come across as incongruous and doesn’t really add anything which is a shame. The final transformation sees the now fully developed human being turn into the kid on the cover of the “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” album but it must be a lookalike or CGI as Cook was never able to track that person down to pay him some royalties for the use of his image.

Poet Laureate link: As a member of The Housemartins, Cook had a connection to the city of Hull (where I have lived for the past 22 years). The poet Philip Larkin was the Librarian at the University of Hull and he was offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1984 which he declined.

Some things in life are just inexplicable. The Bermuda Triangle, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the England football team’s inability to win a trophy since 1966…and the appeal and success of Westlife. Yes, we’ve arrived at that point I’m afraid. The point where somehow the UK decided that far from having had enough of boy bands littering the charts throughout the 90s, that despite the sea change to the popularity of girl groups in the second half of the decade, and never minding that we’d already had years of one Irish boy band dominating everything…we needed another one! Why for chrissakes? WHY?! I just didn’t get it with this lot. They were so dull and, it seemed to me, inherently a one trick pony. How could anyone distinguish between one overwrought, schmaltzy ballad from another?! They all sounded the same! And not just that, they were all performed the same with those grinning berks sat in a line on stools, sometimes getting up if they had a solo. And yet, they were successful. Incredibly so, breaking chart records at will whilst racking up No 1 after No 1. They had four just in 1999 despite the first one “Swear It Again” – coming with four months of the year gone already. They weren’t even that good looking were they? Given the amount of times they will no doubt appear in these TOTP repeats, I’m leaving it here. For now.

Poet Laureate link: W.B. Yeats who was a Nobel Laureate (an Irish equivalent of a poet laureate) and Westlife share a connection with Sligo with the former famously associated with the town and its landscapes and the latter having grown up there (well, three of them anyway). Because of this shared hometown, Sligo’s tourism and cultural boards often promote the “poetry of Yeats and the music of Westlife”!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	No
2	Texas	In Our Lifetime	Nope
3	Busta Rhymes / Janet Jackson	What’s It Gonna Be?!	Never
4	S Club 7	Bring It All Back	Not likely
5	Faithless	Bring My Family Back	I did not
6	Armand van Helden	Flowerz	Nah
7	Fatboy Slim	Right Here, Right Now	No but I had the album
8	Westlife	Swear It Again	No – I swear!

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rxqf/top-of-the-pops-30041999

TOTP 23 APR 1999

Posted on 24 Days Ago by 80stastic

Of the eight songs in this TOTP, four of them have been on the show before, some of them many times previously. The running order has the four ‘new’ hits sandwiched together in the middle, bookended by two repeated performances at either end of it. Was this some sort of shit sandwich in reverse technique being employed by executive producer Chris Cowey? Let’s see…

Disclaimer: I’m not saying that if a song had been on the show before it was necessarily shit in terms of its quality but rather that Cowey was shitting all over our expectations of being fed some new hits rather than those we were very familiar with.

Our host is Gail Porter and we start with…and this is truly ridiculous…Whitney Houston with “It’s Not Right But It’s OK”. Just..why Cowey? WHY?! Look, these are the facts about this one:

TOTP appearances: Five
No of repeats of original studio performance: Four
Date of first appearance: 26 Feb 1999
Weeks in Top 40: Twelve
In every week but one after debuting at No 3, it moved down the charts.

Why was it on the show so often? Was it part of the contract between Whitney and her people and the BBC that if she did an in person performance that TOTP had to show it a certain amount of times like five maybe?

Right, let’s have a look at Phats & Small and their hit “Turn Around”. Here are their facts:

Total TOTP appearances: Four (this was the third)
No of consecutive appearances: Three (four over a five week period)
Weeks in Top 10: Seven
Chart run: 3 – 4 – 2 – 8 – 7 – 8 – 7

So three of those four appearances coincided with the single going back up the chart which seems justified but four times in five shows still seems like overkill to me. Maybe though I was/am just a dinosaur, a relic of a past time having been brought up on the Top 40 of the 80s which was much more sluggish and intransient, when songs would take weeks to move up the charts and instant, week one Top 3 hits were rare to non-existent. Record company practices had changed by the end of the 90s and maybe TOTP was just reacting accordingly to a new way of the charts operating. I’m not sure how regular a viewer of the show I was by 1999 so cannot recall being as frustrated as I am now with all these repeat performances but I wasn’t doing a write up of each show back then either. Oh it’s all relative isn’t it?

From two artists with prolific TOTP appearance stats to one whom I would have thought had a much better record but then, I could have sworn that Electronic had actually released more music than their discography tells me they have. From their debut in 1989, they released a total of eight singles and three albums. Is that a decent amount of material over a 10 year period? I’m not sure. Certainly that singles figure seems a tad on the low side and resulted in just six TOTP appearances over the course of their career. Back in 1991, not long after I’d started working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, the duo of Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr had released their eponymous debut album to critical appreciation and commercial success (it made No 2 in the album charts and sold a million copies worldwide). I recall their being such a buzz about the album which was magnified in Manchester obviously given the background of its two protagonists. There was even a demand for the import version of the album which included the single “Getting Away With It” which the UK version did not.

However, a gap of five years until the next album proved to be too long for that momentum to be maintained and sophomore effort “Raise The Pressure” was nowhere near as well received, neither commercially nor critically. By 1999, were they seen as, if not irrelevant, then as an anachronism? Too harsh? Maybe but the truth was that third album “Twisted Tenderness” spent just two weeks inside the Top 40 chart. Its lead single “Vivid” was…well…OK and that seems a damning description when you consider the quality of the cannon of work of Sumner and Marr. Was their heart not really in it anymore? That didn’t seem to be the case watching this performance and more specifically Sumner’s energetic-pogoing, arms-flailing, air-punching, woo hoo-ing antics. Maybe a decision to dissolve the project had already been made and he wanted to go out with a flourish? If so, we couldn’t have known that at the time but retrospectively we got the message.

Fancy a flamenco guitar themed dance anthem? No, nor do I but I haven’t got any choice as the author of this blog so you’re coming with me! According to Wikipedia, Ruff Driverz had six Top 40 hits. Six! I couldn’t have named one of them without looking at their discography but “La Musica” was the fifth of them and the second highest charting peaking at No 13. It was officially credited to Ruff Driverz presents Arrola but who was Arrola? Well, she was Katherine Ellis who came from a very performing arts background. Look at this from her Wikipedia page:

“…her mother Elizabeth was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy for dramatic art, her grandmother Joy was a violinist and pianist, and her great grandmother Elizabeth Haslam was a opera singer who won a competition at the Royal Albert Hall in 1893.”

Blimey! Katherine continued that lineage by becoming one of the go to vocalists in the UK house scene, working with the likes of Freemasons, Soul Avengerz and Cherrone. As for “La Musica”, I’m sure it was popular in the clubs but its repetitive “Di-O-Lo-Le-La” line didn’t make for a very engaging TOTP performance, even allowing for the distraction of the troupe of backing dancers. As for the ‘Arrola’ moniker, whoever thought it up was only one letter away from making a tit of themselves.

Before the Sugababes and their revolving door recruitment policy, there was Honeyz who set the mould for girl groups and continually changing line ups. However, I’ve talked about that story in all its detail before so I don’t propose to go through it all again. Suffice to say that, as Gail Porter comments, this was the first time for most of us seeing new member Mariama Goodman who had recently replaced Heavenli Abdi. The timing of Abdi’s departure was really off though coming as they were preparing to embark on a promotional campaign for the release of their third single “Love Of A Lifetime”. The original trio had already shot the video for the track including scenes with Abdi but her decision to quit after that shoot and before a promotional trip to Australia meant that the promo was now effectively redundant and so would have to be reshot. A temporary, second cut saw Heavenli heavily edited out of the video before a third was produced with shots of Goodman included. I wonder if the Honeyz management billed Abdi for all that re-shooting?

“Love Of A Lifetime” was more of the slick R&B/ pop sound we’d come to expect and duly returned another sizeable hit when it peaked at No 9. As far as I can ascertain, Abdi’s original vocals remained on the track and it wasn’t until follow up “Never Let You Down” that Goodman’s own singing featured. A fifth single from their album “Wonder No 8” appeared in early 2000 at which point Goodman promptly left the group to be replaced by a returning Abdi and the line up shenanigans began in earnest. Honeyz are still a going concern today operating as a trio of Célena Cherry, her sister Candace and Abdi (now known as Heavenli Roberts). In conclusion, I can’t say if they finally found the perfect line up and share a love of a lifetime or if the end of the line might still be in sight.

We’ve arrived at the final ‘new’ single of the show and it’s from Suede who we hadn’t seen nor heard of since August 1997 when “Filmstar” was released as the final single from their “Coming Up” album. In the interim time, Brett Anderson had developed a serious drug problem whilst keyboardist Neil Codling’s health was affected by chronic fatigue syndrome. As such, the environment for writing and recording a new album wasn’t ideal. Plus, there was a decision to be made about which direction the band should head musically. After divisive sophomore album “Dog Man Star” had drawn acclaim as a work of genius and criticism as one of the most pretentious albums ever recorded, a more mainstream sound was pursued with the glam-pop of “Coming Up” that furnished the band with five Top 10 singles. That run was continued by “Electricity”, the lead track from fourth album “Head Music”. However, subsequent singles released from it would form a picture of diminishing returns and indeed, Suede have not returned to the Top 10 since.

“Head Music” would top the charts but would spend just two weeks inside the Top 20 suggesting large early sales due to a sizeable fan base but a lack of crossover appeal. In terms of its sonic properties, it had a more electronic sound with producer Steve Osborne, who had worked with the Happy Mondays, imbuing it with a dance music vibe. As for “Electricity”, it sounded a bit more raw/garage-like to me than anything on “Coming Up” though some reviews heard a connection to “Trash”. It didn’t grab me I have to say and, as with Electronic earlier, left me a little underwhelmed but compared to some of the other rubbish in the charts, it was…well…electric but just on a lower wattage than before. Definitely not displaying low wattage was the visual effect of an electric charge coming from Brett’s microphone. Maybe it looked clever back in 1999 but it looks a bit naff in 2026.

Right, that confirms it. The fact that Westlife are clearly seen in the backstage area next to Gail Porter during the next segue and they haven’t even had a hit yet and won’t perform on the show for the very first time for another seven days is definitive proof that some of these performances were definitely not recorded the same week that the show was broadcast. This explains why the host is sometimes not seen in shot when doing the link and we just get a cutaway instead. Finally!

Right, rant over. We’re back to the repeated performances and we get TLC with “No Scrubs” again. Here are the details for this one:

Total TOTP appearances: Four (this was the third)
No of consecutive appearances: Two
Weeks in Top 10: Eight
Chart run: 7- 13 – 8 – 6 – 9 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 9

OK so, having cross-referenced its chart positions with the group’s TOTP performances, there does seem to be some clear, logical correlation with each appearance synchronised with a corresponding rise up the chart. That’s all fine but why did we have to have this satellite performance video every single time? Couldn’t we have had the promo video one time at least? After all, it did win the MTV Video Music Award For Best Group Video at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards.

Right, I can’t really complain about this repeat performance seeing as it is actually the No 1 single for the second week running. Yes, this week’s highest new entry from Suede (No 5) proved to be no serious competition in the end for Martine McCutcheon and her hit “Perfect Moment”. With a No 1 straight off the bat, the only way was down for Martine and she would never have that level of success again but that chart topper can never be taken away from her (even if it was a cover version).

One thing that was taken off her though was any potential return to EastEnders. Supposedly, Martine was not happy with her character Tiffany Mitchell being killed off by the writers to allow her to pursue her pop star ambitions as she would have liked the chance to return once her music-orientated spleen had been vented but they used to call that having your cake and eating it didn’t they?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Whitney Houston	It’s Not Right But It’s OK	No
2	Phats & Small	Turn Around	No thanks
3	Electronic	Vivid	I did not
4	Ruff Driverz presents Arrola	La Musica	Never
5	Honeyz	Love Of A Lifetime	Nah
6	Suede	Electricity	Negative
7	TLC	No Scrubs	Nope
8	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rlpg/top-of-the-pops-23041999

TOTP 16 APR 1999

Posted on February 26 by 80stastic

In the previous show, Jamie Theakston made a reference to Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs in his intro to Catatonia as the Welsh international had scored an important equaliser for his club in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final versus Juventus. His goal scoring form continued into another huge game – the FA Cup semi-final replay against title rivals Arsenal two days before this TOTP aired. Whilst the goal itself was pretty special, it was his celebration of it that remains uppermost in the memory. Removing his shirt and twirling it around his head, the full extent of the hairiness of the Giggs chest was revealed. Many gagging reflexes were put into operation at the sight. I think it was the shock factor more than anything else. Fancy that lath-thin, whippet-like Ryan Giggs having a big, manly, hairy chest like that. I wonder if any of tonight’s acts had hairy chests or failing that a connection to hair (other than the obvious one on their heads)?

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss (pretty sure she didn’t have a hairy chest) and the first artist on tonight is Phats & Small with their dance anthem hit “Turn Around”. This was only just on the previous show so I’m struggling to find anything else to say about it. I’ve said about vocalist Ben Ofoedu being engaged to TV broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, I’ve referenced their amusingly named album “Now Phats What I Small Music”…what else is there? Oh, the track itself. Well, yeah there is that I suppose. Well, I can hear why it was a success. It was a very accessible tune which crossed over from the dance floor to daytime radio which presumably helped prolong its chart life which clocked in at seven consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Its legacy includes being voted in at No 38 in MTV Dance’s 2011 list of ‘The 100 Biggest 90’s Dance Anthems of All Time’. That do?

Hairy connection: DHT (a byproduct of testosterone) causes body hair to grow and head hair to shrink sometimes leading to the paradox of hairy men being bald on their heads. Testosterone is sometimes nicknamed ‘phat’.

Meatloaf was still having hits in 1999?! I know the 90s had been a renaissance decade for him what with “Bat Out Of Hell II” being a humongous sales phenomenon but that had been back in 1993. What’s that? He also had a big seller with the follow up “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” two years later? Well, yes he did and yes it delivered him three hit singles including the No 2 hit “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” but that was still years prior. By the end of the 90s, he (or his record company) had resorted to yet another Best Of album (the 13th of 20 according to his discography) which was released the previous November just in time for the Christmas sales rush. How convenient/cynical. Ah, so that’s where this song comes from. The practice of releasing a Greatest Hits album but trailing it with a new track was well established by this point and Meatloaf wasn’t going to buck the trend. “Is Nothing Sacred” had originally been recorded for the “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” album but hadn’t made the cut at the time. It was recycled though for “The Very Best Of Meatloaf” when it was re-recorded as a duet with his go to female singer Patti Russo. It was, in fact, not originally scheduled for that role though as there was another song on that Greatest Hits album that was earmarked for that job which was “A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” which had been The Loaf’s contribution to the Jim Steinman penned Whistle Down The Wind soundtrack. Indeed, Meat had been rumoured to be locked in as the artist to record “No Matter What” but that particular golden egg landed up in Boyzone’s laps. Had it gone the other way, I wouldn’t have been asking the question I posed at the start of this paragraph.

As for “Is Nothing Sacred”, despite its place in that Greatest Hits album, it certainly wasn’t one of his very best, being a piss poor imitation of some of those classic hits. There would be a few more charting singles into the new millennium but Meatloaf’s death in 2022 aged 74 meant that 2016’s “Braver Than We Are” would be his last ever album and there would be no more and that’s the truth.

Hairy connection: Well, apart from the obvious long hair he sported in the “Bat Out Of Hell” era, Meatloaf also appeared in the musical Hair on and off Broadway.

It’s a repeat of that satellite performance by TLC of “No Scrubs” next. This was another of those remarkably hardy hits that enjoyed an extended chart life, spending two months inside the Top 10 eventually peaking at No 3. However, looking in more detail at its chart stats, there was a moment when things might have panned out differently. After debuting at No 7 it actually dropped to No 13 the following week and at that point you would have been forgiven for thinking that it would continue to spiral down the charts. Not so though as a third week reversal of fortunes saw it climb back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven consecutive weeks. Even then, there were undulations within that period with the single moving to No 6 then dropping to No 9 before vaulting back to No 3 and spending two weeks at No 5. What was all that about? Well, it would be featured on TOTP twice more so maybe that exposure helped propel it up the charts? I’m not sure but what I do know is that I’m going to have to find something to write about it at least twice more in this blog for which my creativity might require some tender loving care.

Hairy connection: The follow up hit to “No Scrubs” was “Unpretty” which featured a lyric about hair extensions – “You can buy your hair if it won’t grow”.

In the three years since they’d last released an album, The Cranberries had found themselves rather usurped in the rock band fronted by a charismatic female lead singer with a strong, Celtic influenced accent stakes. Catatonia had ripped up the charts with hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage” going Top 5, eclipsing the highest peaking singles of their Irish contemporaries who rather unbelievably and certainly unjustly would never have a Top 10 hit. Come 1999, after Dolores O’Riordan had given birth to her first child, The Cranberries were back with fourth album “Bury The Hatchet” preceded by lead single “Promises”. It was a strong, aggressive sounding comeback (though there was a lot of reliance on lyrics like “Oh-woah, oh, oh” and “Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo”) but the truth was that five years on from their commercial heyday, the band’s sales were in decline. “Bury The Hatchet” sold a tenth of the copies which debut “Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can’t We?” did. The album’s cover artwork probably didn’t help. Whilst the first three featured standard but effective poses of the band, their fourth went in an altogether more arty direction. It was designed by Storm Thorgerson who was school mates with most of Pink Floyd and would go on to design the iconic cover for their legendary “The Dark Side Of The Moon” album. However, “Bury The Hatchet” would not garner such an illustrious reputation. You could see glimpses of Thorgerson’s work on, for example, “Wish You Were Here” in the concept but a naked man being observed by a suspended giant eye against a desert background looked outlandish rather than creative.

A fifth album followed within two years but its perceived lack of promotion by their record label pushed the band to split from MCA and ushered in an eight year hiatus. Three more albums would arrive (one posthumously) but the death of O’Riordan in 2018 brought a permanent end to the band’s story.

Hairy connection: Consuming dried cranberries is associated with promoting hair growth due to their vitamin C and antioxidant content.

Now I remember the name Glamma Kid but can I tell you anything about the artist behind that name? No I can’t. Not without the aid of the internet anyway.

*checks internet*

OK, well that’s not his real name obviously. That would be Iyael Lyases Tafari Constable…yeah, not as snappy as Glamma Kid is it? Anyway, he was/is a toaster – of the musical kind obviously not a relative of the artificially intelligent electric bread toaster variety that was a recurring character in Red Dwarf with an obsession with making small talk exclusively about toast. Of course not. Hailing from Hackney, he initially made a name for himself by appearing on Tim Westwood’s Radio 1 rap show in 1996. By the following year, he was being awarded a MOBO Award for Best Reggae Act and by 1999 he had two Top 10 hits. The first of those was “Taboo” which interpolated the 1985 Sade hit “The Sweetest Taboo” and was a duet (of sorts) with Shola Ama.

I was never the biggest fan of the original but what they’ve done to it with this treatment is nothing short of criminal and when I say they I mean Glamma Kid. What is he doing here? Bent down on his haunches, stalking the stage in an all white suit? I think he was going for a Mark Morrison vibe but he actually looks like Vic Reeves during one of his rubbing his thighs, over excited by a female guest episodes of Shooting Stars. Then there’s the noise that he’s making. It’s just horrible caterwauling! It’s even worse than Shaggy! Who could possibly want to listen to it more than once or am I missing something?! You know what, I don’t think I am.

Hairy connection: Glamma is presumably short for ‘glamour’ which conjures up images of luxuriously coiffured hair plus Glamma Kid featured on a 1998 remix of David Bowie’s “Fashion” which again has connections with hairstyles.

Yay! It’s the New Radicals again! This was the third time in the show for Gregg Alexander’s band and their hit “You Get What You Give” but you won’t find me moaning about repeat performances in the Chris Cowey era as I have done for month after month, post after post as I’m a complete hypocrite and I liked this one so the more the merrier for me!

However, it does leave me with the problem of what else I’m going to say about it. Well, this appears to be a live vocal performance as Gregg does seem to be straining somewhat with his singing in places. Actually, there also appear to be some technical issues as well with echoing vocals and a definite bit of feedback towards the end of the song. We just about have time for the infamous “Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson” line but not for the word “ass” right at the death though I think the BBC censors might have blanked it out. Hard to tell.

Hairy connection: Although Gregg Alexander wore his trademark hat to cover his face to hide the fact that he was not enjoying promoting a hit record via the rules of the music industry, it also concealed the fact that he was bald that was only revealed in the video that accompanied the song.

Talk about creating a buzz about a forthcoming release! There was always going to be great deal of interest in the debut solo single by ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell but the promotion around “Look At Me” really went into overdrive. Look at this TOTP exclusive showing of its promo video a whole month before it was actually released! And that was just part of the marketing story. Halliwell embarked on a short promotional tour in support of the single visiting cities such as Rio de Janeiro, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Milan. Remember, she only had the one song at this point that you could actually buy (even the extra tracks on the CD single were just remixes of “Look At Me”) yet she was straddling the globe to sell it! Was it all worth it? Yes and no. A No 2 hit is nothing to be sneered at but surely after all that promotion a chart topping debut would have been expected. In the end, Geri was beaten by Boyzone doing yet another cover version. That must have stung a bit.

So what about her actual song – was it any good? Well, I give Geri credit for not doing an obvious big ballad (I’m not sure she had the vocal chops for that anyway) or indeed, going the Boyzone route and releasing a cover version. However, “Look At Me” was accused of sounding very similar to another late 90s hit – “History Repeating” by Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey and you can hear why though I’m not sure I made that connection myself at the time. The structure of “Look At Me” does work with as opposed to against Geri’s rather limited vocals enabling her to sing in snatches or phrases rather than seamlessly not that there’s anything wrong with that but then what the hell was that middle eight breakdown?! Were the Spice Girls fanbase ready for that or was Geri looking for a new, more mature audience?

I guess I should comment on the video. First off, the fact that it’s nearly all shot in black and white was a bold move from someone who once sang “Colours of the world, Spice up your life”. Again, was that designed to show she was now a serious artist in search of a new type of fan? If that wasn’t a clue then the funeral scene killing of her ‘Ginger Spice’ persona couldn’t be see as anything but a desire to leave behind her former group. This was backed up by the caption at the start of the promo asking “Who is…Geri Halliwell?” suggesting that we perhaps had not seen the real version of her yet. The rest of the video has Halliwell playing around with female stereotypes which she nominated as vamp, bitch, virgin and sister. I’m not quite sure if she succeeded in her observations of said stereotypes nor indeed what those observations might have been.

Whatever you thought of her debut single, and on reflection my judgement would be ‘could’ve been worse’ or even “not without merit”, it paved the way for a run of four consecutive No 1 hits three of which came from her debut album “Schizophonic” and that could in no way be seen as a disappointing return.

Hairy connection: You mean apart from the whole ‘Ginger Spice’ persona being based on her red hair colour and apart from Geri referring to her look as “hair power” and apart from her hair being considered to have altered the course of 1990s beauty history, with fans often emulating her look? Nah, nothing really.

You’d have thought that as the new millennium dawned, we’d have gotten a bit bored with the whole soap star to pop star schtick but here was Tiffany from EastEnders to prove that we still had room for more. I think it’s fair to say that Martine McCuthcheon has moved on from that role not in the least part because of her much loved turn in Love Actually but back then she was Tiffany so big and well liked had her character become. Only a few short months prior, Tiffany Mitchell was written out of the soap when she was killed off on New Year’s Eve after being knocked down by a car driven by Frank Butcher (hence Jayne Middlemiss’s quip about her not being very good at road safety). Twenty-two million people watched that episode and a book about the character of Tiffany was a bestseller!

Given all of that, it’s perhaps no surprise that McCutcheon’s debut single went to No 1. What people did seem to be surprised about though was shown in their reaction to “Perfect Moment” which went along the lines of “It’s quite good innit”. I guess it was a similar response to that which another soap star’s debut single had received not so long before – “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia. However, whereas the ex-Neighbours star had gone for a shimmering piece of pop perfection, Martine gave us the full, dramatic big ballad treatment. Just as Geri Halliwell surprised us with her almost jazz-pop first solo song, perhaps we might have expected a bit of pop fluff from Martine or a cover version like previous EastEnders star Sophie Lawrence had and Sid Owen would go on to do. Not a bit of it…or rather a little bit of it as “Perfect Moment” was a cover but I’m pretty sure most people were completely unaware of the original. Recorded in 1997 by Polish singer Edyta Górniak, that version was little known outside of Poland and so, again as with Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”, most of us thought it was, if not Martine’s song, then it had been written specifically for her. It starts off sounding a bit like “A Different Corner” by George Michael with a some serene strings being plucked before Martine delivers a perfectly adequate vocal. There’s no doubting that she could sing a bit but then she had been in little known, mid 90s girl group Milan who spent one week at No 82 with a single called “Lead Me On” – I did say they were little known! Anyway, “Perfect Moment” came over as quite a classy tune in the style of Barbra Streisand or at least Celine Dion and great things were predicted for Martine McCutcheon the pop star. A No 2 album duly followed and a pair of No 6 singles but by 2000, diminishing returns kicked in and her next two albums didn’t produce anywhere near the same numbers. Then came a return to acting and the role of Natalie in Love Actually though I have to say I can’t think of much else I e seen her in recently and Love Actually is now 23 years old.

*checks her filmography*

Martine’s most recent TV appearances have been as herself in shows like Loose Women, Celebrity Gogglebox and The Masked Singer in which she came 10th dressed as a swan. Probably not her perfect moment then.

Hairy connection: Martine has openly discussed her struggles with scalp sensitivity and dandruff endorsing Polytar medicinal shampoo to treat these issues and has become a scalp health advocate using her platform to discuss the impact of stress and health issues on her hair.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Phats & Small	Turn Around	Negative
2	Meatloaf	Is Nothing Sacred	I did not
3	TLC	No Scrubs	Nah
4	The Cranberries	Promises	Nope
5	Glamma Kid / Shola Ama	Taboo	No chance
6	New Radicals	You Get What You Give	YES!
7	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	I did not
8	Martine McCuthcheon	Perfect Moment	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rlpd/top-of-the-pops-16041999

TOTP 09 APR 1999

Posted on February 23 by 80stastic

As usual, this episode of TOTP is a complete hotchpotch of musical styles and artists. There’s new acts, established ones, returning former Britpop luminaries, the debut of a soon to be rap superstar, a dance track and an almost novelty No 1. Utter chaos. Our host is Jamie Theakston and we start with a hit going down the charts – of course we do. However, I like this one so no Chris Cowey bashing from me this time! Indeed, “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals would prove to be a long term Top 40 resident spending a month in the Top 10, ten weeks inside the Top 20 and over three months on the Top 40 as a whole. I mean, it’s not quite up there with the Steps version of “Tragedy” or “How Will I Live” by LeAnn Rimes but even so.

By way of contrast, what would be the band’s second and final single, the rather excellent “Someday We’ll Know”, spent a meagre two weeks within the Top 100, peaking at No 48. Why the disparity? Well, firstly it took over five months for it to be released. Presumably, this was because of the extended chart life of “You Get What You Give” meaning the band’s record label MCA had to wait for its sales to dissipate before any follow up could be made available. An understandable decision but the consequence of which was that much of the momentum behind the band was lost. Secondly and most impactful though was the press release issued by Gregg Alexander on July 12th informing the world that the New Radicals were breaking up. I’m guessing MCA couldn’t see the point in spending much time or money promoting the single after that although a video was made to accompany it (albeit quite a lacklustre one). So, the New Radicals – they came, they saw, they conquered and then turned their back on it all. A missed opportunity creatively and commercially or an artist who stood proud and firm by his principles and rejected the machinations of the music industry? You decide.

After an exclusive pre-release performance last week (the like of which the show’s captions were just terming as ‘NEW’), Mariah Carey entered the charts at No 16 with “I Still Believe”. It turns out that this was actually a cover version of a song originally recorded by one Brenda K. Starr who had an early career as an R&B singer and a role in the hip-hop film Beat Street but who would go on to be better known as a Latin pop artist. Here’s the real kicker though – Mariah Carey used to be her backing singer. Described by the five-octave vocal ranged one as being her ‘mentrix’, Starr initiated Mariah’s solo career by giving her demo tape to Columbia Records executive (and future Mr Carey) Tommy Mottola. Perhaps as some sort of tribute to Starr, Carey would record her own version of “I Still Believe” 10 years after the original was released.

This story got me thinking…are they any other examples of a former backing singer recording one of the main attraction’s songs? There are plenty of examples of backing singers going into have their own solo careers – Sheryl Crow performed that role for Michael Jackson whilst Luther Vandross did the same for David Bowie for example – but did anyone go that step further and cut their own version of a song they presumably did backing vocals for? The closest I can come up with is Whitney Houston who provided backing vocals for Chaka Khan aged just 15 and then went on to record her own version of the latter’s “I’m Every Woman”. However, she didn’t originally sing on the Chaka original. So unless, Julia Fordham did a version of “Just What I Always Wanted” by Mari Wilson or Eddie Reader gave her take on a Eurythmics number, I’m at a loss.

A curious release next. After racking up three hits over the previous twelve months including a No 1, Another Level’s next move was a double A-side single featuring a cover version and, bizarrely, a remix of their debut hit. What was all this about then? Well, from what I can work out, the strategy behind the release of “Holding Back The Years” / “Be Alone No More” was two pronged. Their take on the Simply Red classic was a charity record with the profits from it going to the Help A London Child project (hence one of the band shouting “Yeah, c’mon…help a London child y’all” during this performance) whilst the revisiting of their debut hit was part of the promotion of a remix album that presumably was to…well, I’m not sure why they felt the need to release a remix album just five months after their debut studio album. To maintain their profile until the second album came out? Seems unlikely given that said album (“Nexus”) arrived five months after the remix album. Was it to showcase their R&B credentials? Whatever the reason, its release was a non event with it peaking at No 76.

As for their take on “Holding Back The Years”, the guy doing lead vocals can certainly sing but it isn’t a patch on the Hucknall original and I say that as someone who for ages couldn’t bear to listen to the Simply Red version. I might have lessened my resolve on that one as time has passed. We’ll be seeing Another Level three more times during these TOTP repeats as said second album would yield a trio of hit singles. Oh great. I think I’ve got the fear. Can someone help me with holding back the fear?

Here’s that dance hit I mentioned at the top of the post. As Jamie Theakston referenced in his intro to this one, Phats & Small were from Brighton and “Turn Around” was the first and biggest of their four UK hits. Now, I think it’s probably quite apparent from the fact that there’s two blokes at the back of the stage spinning the decks behind two huge stacks, one labelled ‘Phats’ and the other ‘Small’ that the bloke up front doing the singing wasn’t, in fact, either Phats or Small. No, he was Ben Ofoedu whose biggest claim to fame might not be his involvement with this track (and subsequent hits) but the fact that he was engaged to broadcaster Vanessa Feltz for 17 years. Their ultimate split was very public with Feltz describing it in detail in her autobiography Vanessa Bares All so I don’t propose to go into that any further. After all this is a music blog not a celebrity gossip column so let’s get back to the music.

“Turn Around” pretty much hit the mark in following the same blueprint that Daft Punk used for side project Stardust’s 1998 hit “Music Sounds Better With You”. Or, to put it another way, it was very repetitive. That didn’t stop it getting to No 2 in the UK charts and becoming a hit all around Europe though. Despite the single’s success and that of subsequent releases, like many dance acts of the time, Phats & Small couldn’t generate much in the way of album sales despite it having one of the best titles ever. A few weeks later in 1999, another duo would take another dance track right up the charts to No 1 but Shanks & Bigfoot couldn’t rival Phats & Small when it came to album titles – “Swings And Roundabouts” was no “Now Phats What I Small Music”.

Time for a returning Britpop luminary now but, in truth, Reef weren’t really Britpop were they? They were a British rock band that happened to be successful in the era of Britpop. And successful they were. A No 1 album and a string of hit singles and yet all I can remember of them is “Place Your Hands” (which I bought) and its follow up “Come Back Brighter”. Oh, and this…

Anyway, I certainly don’t remember “I’ve Got Something To Say” which was the lead single from their third album “Rides”. The two years since last album “Glow” had seen trends change though. For one, Britpop was over and although Reef probably didn’t perceive themselves as being part of it, did that movement’s demise have any effect on their popularity? That proposition is probably a bit of a stretch I have to admit but what is true is that their commercial fortunes did decrease. Sure, “Rides” went Top 3 but it only achieved a fifth of the sales of “Glow”. Listening to “I’ve Got Something To Say” in 2026, I quite like it in a not having to be too engaged type of way but it doesn’t seem to have advanced their sound at all in the time they’d been away and maybe that was the problem? It would prove to be their penultimate UK Top 40 hit. The band are still together today albeit after a seven year hiatus between 2003 and 2010 having last released an album in 2022 which went Top 20. Echoing Jamie Theakston’s comment, I can confirm that they are still hairy. Very hairy.

In case you were wondering, Jamie Theakston’s comments about “Welsh gigs” and “scoring a last minute equaliser” were referencing the fact that Welsh footballer Ryan Giggs had scored in the 92nd minute to grab a 1-1 draw for Manchester United in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Juventus two days before this TOTP aired. United would, of course, go into win the Champions League and complete an historic treble that season. I wonder if Theakston nearly said Cantona instead of Catatonia when introducing the Welsh band as the next artist on the show?

Anyway, unlike with Reef, I think I’m safe describing Cerys and co as returning Britpop luminaries (or should that be Cool Cymru stars?). They hadn’t been away as long as Reef – indeed, there was barely 14 months between the albums “International Velvet” and “Equally Cursed And Blessed” – and yet, seen through the perspective of time passed, just like Reef, Catatonia did experience a fall off in commercial success. It didn’t seem like it at the time, of course, as “Equally Cursed And Blessed” followed “International Velvet” to the top of the charts but the plain truth is that the former sold a third of what the latter did despite its lead single “Dead From The Waist Down” becoming the band’s third Top 10 hit. Unlike Reef who sounded pretty similar to how they did two years prior, the new track was quite a departure from previous hits such as “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage”. A country tinged ballad, it was almost a sweet song by comparison. It also strikes me, listening to it back, that it’s quite a simple song with some basic chord structures but is embellished with some string flourishes which, alongside Cerys’s distinctive vocal phrasing, make the track.

Despite debuting at No 1 and at one point all three of the band’s albums being in the Top 40, “Equally Cursed And Blessed” didn’t stick around the charts as long as its predecessor though it did record five weeks in the Top 10. “International Velvet”, by comparison, remained there for 18 weeks. Had they rush released a follow up to their best known work too soon? If so, they didn’t make that same mistake again by taking nearly two and a half years to come up with their fourth and final album “Paper Scissors Stone”. The strategy of taking a longer gestation period didn’t work either as it only spent four weeks in the charts before the band split up for good.

And so to the debut of that soon-to-be rap superstar. Twenty seven years on fromhis debut hit, could any of us who were around back then honestly say that they knew that this kid was going to go down in music history as a legend? I’m pretty sure I can’t. A legend he is though and that can’t be denied, regardless of what you think of his music. Just a quick scan of his Wikipedia page is enough to appreciate how big a name and influence this guy is. His discography shows cross-Atlantic No 1 albums with every release helping to make him the best selling music artist in America during the 2000s with global sales exceeding 220 million. The roll call of artists who have cited him as an influence includes Usher, 50 Cent, Ed Sheeran, Drake, Lana Del Ray…the list goes on and on. He’s won 15 Grammy Awards and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His song writing has been compared to that of John Lennon whilst his stage presence has been lauded by the likes of Elton John whom he calls a friend. He has been nicknamed the Elvis of hip-hop and is widely recognized for breaking racial barriers for the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. He is…Vanilla Ice! I’M JOKING!!it’s Eminem of course and we see him here at the start of his mega career with “My Name Is”.

Now, I wasn’t sure about this track initially. Firstly, I’m not a rap enthusiast so it would have to be quite something to have taken me with it immediately. It felt a bit…gimmicky? Not authentic? Even Eminem himself is on record as describing it as ‘tongue-in-cheek’ and ‘kitschy’ and that, ultimately, he got tired of performing it. I was also a bit dumb when it came to understanding the ‘Slim Shady’ persona. The opening lines of “Hi, my name is, what? My name is, who? My name is chka-chka, Slim Shady” confused me. Wasn’t his name Eminem? Like I said, I was a bit dumb on that front. However, in the end, I couldn’t resist its catchiness nor ignore its provocative lyrics, so provocative in fact that Eminem’s mother Debbie Mathers filed a $10 million slander lawsuit against her son for insinuating that she did drugs in the line “99% of my life I was lied to, I just found out my mom does more dope than I do”. Even in this sanitised version of the song*, the BBC censors had to make some changes with certain word deemed to be offensive being muffled and even the subtitles are scrambled just to ensure nothing got through the net. Talking of censorship, record label Interscope released a ‘clean’ version of parent album “The Slim Shady LP” but guess what? None of the white , middle class lads shopping at the Our Price in Altrincham where I was working wanted to buy that. Not very street was it? Not very ‘in the hood’.

*Labbi Siffre whose track “I Got The…” is interpolated for “My Name Is” insisted that Eminem change the original lyrics that were sexist and homophobic.

It’s a second week at the top for Mr. Oizo and “Flat Beat” and I don’t know what else to say about this one. Just bizarre. OK, what I will say is that the ‘Flat Eric’ puppet would briefly look as if it was going to be the next huge merchandising opportunity. Certainly HMV chain’s Simon Winter said at the time that the little yellow puppet was creating demand for anything with its image reproduced on it and that it had the potential to rival South Park as that year’s big seller. I have to say that I don’t recall ‘Flat Eric Fever’ happening in any significant way and certainly don’t remember the Our Price store in Altrincham selling any such merchandise. Was it a licensing issue? If so, somebody holds the rights now as a quick search of the internet shows ‘Flat Eric’ T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and socks. However, it seems that a toy or puppet of the little yellow fella is only available via vintage websites or as pre-owned items suggesting that nobody is manufacturing them anymore and that somebody indeed did have the licence to produce and sell them back in the day. Now I come to think of it, wasn’t there one in an episode of The Office? I think there was when David Brent was showing someone new around. So there you go. The sharp, cultural impact of Flat Eric writ large.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	New Radicals	You Get What You Give	YES!
2	Mariah Carey	I still Believe	No thanks
3	Another Level	Holding Back The Years” / “Be Alone No More	Never
4	Phats & Small	Turn Around	Nah
5	Reef	I’ve Got Something To Say	Negative
6	Catatonia	Dead From The Waist Down	Nope
7	Eminem	My Name Is	No
8	Mr. Oizo	Flat Beat	I did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002r8hl/top-of-the-pops-09041999